By John Prendergast
From The Enough Project

Six months before the self-determination referenda for South Sudan and Abyei, U.S. policy is not contributing in a meaningful way to peace and justice in Sudan, whether in preventing a return to war between North and South Sudan, or in resolving the escalating conflict in Darfur. The time has come for an urgent rethink of how the United States can contribute to peace in Sudan now, building on the lessons of the recent past.

Complicating matters greatly, the Obama administration is not implementing the policy of benchmarks, incentives, and consequences articulated by Secretary Clinton and Ambassador Rice in October 2009, a policy which appears to have either been put on hold or abandoned. The lack of follow-up to the strong words that accompanied the rollout of that approach undermines U.S. influence further with each passing day.

The words and actions of key Obama administration officials reveal a largely hands-off approach to critical negotiations focused on peacemaking in Darfur, implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, between the North and South, and reaching agreement on crucial post-referendum arrangements to prevent an all-out national war. The same words and actions reflect a self-perception of marginal U.S. influence in peace-making in Sudan. In a self-fulfilling prophecy, the Obama administration is every day becoming less relevant to the prevention of war in Sudan, just at a time when its leadership and hands-on involvement are needed most.

Let’s be specific. There are four areas in which the Enough Project and a significant segment of the activist community disagree with the Obama administration’s words and actions.

1. Darfur Peacemaking

The Obama Administration’s View: The United States pressured Chad in an attempt to marginalize the Justice and Equality Movement, and then pushed for a peace deal with a number of entities with little field presence. Now, the Obama administration appears to have abandoned the idea of negotiating a sustainable peace deal with the parties to the conflict in Darfur, and instead is backing the idea of a separate internal process of peace-building referred to at times as the Darfur-Darfur dialogue. U.S. Special Envoy General Scott Gration is also backing the Liberty and Justice Movement in Doha, a newly formed rebel faction with little support on the ground and with minimal military significance. This will in all likelihood lead to a deal that further fissures Darfur and makes matters worse, similar to the Darfur Peace Agreement negotiated in part by the Bush administration in Abuja, Nigeria, in 2006. Although there are more American diplomats being deployed to Juba and Khartoum, the U.S. has no permanent presence at the peace talks in Doha or personnel assigned to move between government, rebels, and civil society. The special envoy appears to be concentrating the administration’s efforts on post-conflict development in lieu of securing a political deal, despite the enormous security issues and lack of any effective cease-fire on the ground in Darfur today. Also, numerous voices in the Obama administration are arguing to put Darfur on the back-burner while they focus on the North-South issues.

Enough’s Alternative View: The United States needs to ramp up its support of peace in Darfur by deploying a small team of negotiators and experts to revitalize the moribund peace effort. Their efforts should focus on contributing to a draft single text proposal with the full involvement of both armed and unarmed Darfuris that addresses the fundamental roots of the conflict and the issues that most concern the average citizen. Leaving the most powerful armed groups, and potential spoilers, out of the peace equation, and failing to garner the support of local communities throughout Darfur to back it up, will render any peace agreement impossible to implement. All Darfuri factions should be engaged in a revitalized process involving multiple tracks and securing the maximum buy-in from community leaders and civil society at-large. Furthermore, the Obama administration should not deemphasize the Darfur issue in favor of the North-South challenges. The ruling National Congress Party, or NCP, has succeeded in playing these two regions off against each other within the broader international community. It is imperative that the U.S. and other countries focus on both equally and work toward a comprehensive all-Sudan peace.

2. Post-Referendum Negotiations and CPA Implementation

The Obama Administration’s View: At a recent U.S. Committee for International Religious Freedom, or USCIRF, event, General Gration reported his satisfaction with the ruling NCP and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM, hammering out an approach to North-South negotiations without the United States, and with the African Union High Level Implementation Panel, or AUHIP, and the United Nations taking the lead role as mediators. According to General Gration, the United States has been working hard on the key issues in the CPA, but that it was time for other international actors to take up the helm. He said he envisioned being called upon to assist occasionally, but that because the A.U./U.N. team has assumed leadership of the post-referendum negotiations, the United States would be allowed to concentrate on other issues of concern largely unrelated to these negotiations, such as food security and other functional support systems that would help “keep the place together.” The United States has not deployed full-time, on-site personnel to become embedded in the A.U./U.N.-led process to deal with post-referendum issues, a process that is critical to ensuring a peaceful referendum and smooth implementation of the referendum’s results. Vice President Biden’s recent involvement is a promising development, hopefully presaging more senior administration involvement.

Enough’s Alternative View: The United States has a sizeable responsibility in helping to ensure the implementation of the CPA after having been a major negotiator of that agreement. Given America’s special relationship with the South, the Obama administration needs to be deeply involved in pressing for full implementation, bird-dogging the parties, and shining a spotlight on any efforts to obstruct the peace. In addition to the new U.S. personnel in Juba and Khartoum, the United States should deploy additional diplomatic capacity whose sole focus is CPA implementation, so that hot issues like border demarcation and Abyei do not lead to a return to war. The United States also needs to be deeply involved in supporting the post-referendum A.U./U.N.-led negotiations by deploying a team of diplomats and experts in support of the mediation. As AUHIP has been named the lead international facilitator and mediator of these talks, the United States should actively and aggressively offer its resources and its technical capacity to this body. The model to replicate is the successful negotiation structure that produced the CPA. Africa led the talks, with the U.S. and a few other countries providing close diplomatic support, requisite leverage when necessary in the form of sticks and carrots, and high level diplomatic interventions by key Cabinet officials to help move the process forward.

3. Leverage

The Obama Administration’s View: General Gration and other U.S. officials are increasingly voicing a mantra that the United States has no influence in Sudan. Many in the administration, including the special envoy, operate on the premise that confidence-building measures and incentives are the best way to impact Khartoum’s behavior, but there has been no agreement on which incentives to offer. Given that other powerful voices in the administration are arguing for a pressures-based approach, this has created a stalemate, which also allows those who support an incentive-led approach to contend that their approach has not yet been tried.

Enough’s Alternative View: U.S. efforts to build unilateral and multilateral leverage points may be the greatest potential contribution to peace in Sudan the United States can make. Leverage can be built through intensive and high-level diplomacy and the building of a package of multilateral carrots and sticks that are robust enough to get the attention of the parties. Enough is outlining what some of these pressures and incentives could be in a forthcoming publication from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. As soon as the United States begins to build that package, and signals to the parties its commitment to seeing real change in Sudan, it will gain greater influence on the outcome of the efforts to support peace in both Darfur and the South.

4. Accountability

The Obama Administration’s View: The mixed messages emerging from the administration make it unclear what the U.S. wants vís-a-vís accountability in Sudan. While President Obama was expressing his view that negotiations in Darfur are supported by an emphasis on accountability, General Gration was sounding a more negative tone at the USCIRF event, saying that the genocide charges issued against President Bashir by the International Criminal Court, or ICC, will make his job harder. The bottom line is that the United States has not pressed the Security Council for specific targeted sanctions against any individuals subject to an arrest warrant, or even pushed for a Council statement in support of their apprehension, for fear that this will undermine efforts for a peaceful referendum in the South.

Enough’s Alternative View: The stronger the United States supports the ICC arrest warrants, the more influence it will have in the long-run in support of peace. Justice is a central component of sustainable peace. The United States should be pressing other Security Council members to publicly support the arrest warrants, call for the apprehension of the suspects, and introduce targeted sanctions against them, as well as rallying international opposition to any retaliation against humanitarian operations by the Sudanese regime, such as the expulsion of two International Organization for Migration aid workers on July 22, 2010.

Conclusion

Regrettably, U.S. policy appears to have abandoned the benchmark-based consequences promised by cabinet members nine months ago, and now is marked by support for General Gration’s shuttle trips to the region, consideration of some small confidence-building incentives, debates over whether to deemphasize Darfur in favor of North-South issues, and the deployment of a team of additional diplomats to Juba to support transitional issues in the South.

This represents a fundamental misanalysis of what is needed now. What is urgently required is a full-scale commitment to the kind of negotiations framework that produced the CPA, in which U.S. diplomats and experts were deeply embedded on-site in support of African-led negotiations that utilized international comparative advantages, particularly in the creation and utilization of leverage. Utilizing that lesson in the current context would take two forms: experienced teams deployed to the region to provide close diplomatic support to the A.U./U.N.-led peace processes in Darfur and the South, and U.S. leadership in developing a package of multilateral carrots and sticks to influence the parties’ calculations in support of peace. Having senior officials such as Vice President Biden, Secretary Clinton, Ambassador Rice, and President Obama himself make telephone calls, raise Sudan in meetings, make clear statements of U.S. policy, speak out against human rights abuses, and push the peace process forward will be essential for the success of peace-making in Darfur and the South.

The U.S. made a major contribution to peace-making in Sudan in the past decade during the CPA negotiations. Sadly, the Obama administration is not building on the lessons of past success and thus is not positioning itself to play the role that is needed in averting all-out war in 2011.

By Nicholas Kristof
From The New York Times

The U.N. Security Council is expected to meet today to discuss African peace and security issues, including how to prevent mass atrocities there. Presumably the Security Council will again refuse to address seriously the most important African peace issue — the prospect of a new north-south war in Sudan in the coming months.

It is so frustrating to see what’s unfolding in Sudan these days. It looks like one of those old-time Westerns where two trains are steaming toward each other on the same track. You know it’s going to end badly — and yet it’s difficult to get attention until disaster happens.

A group of 26 aid groups and human rights organizations has just warned again that the international community isn’t doing enough to prepare for the January referendum in South Sudan on whether it should split from the north. Preparations are woefully inadequate, and north-south negotiations on division of oil, water and boundary demarcation are far behind.

There are deep suspicions that the North will interfere with the referendum or foment conflict in the South. The basic reason is simple: About 80 percent of Sudan’s oil is in the south, and the north doesn’t want to lose it to independence. But the upshot may well be another war that will be far deadlier than even Darfur.

Now that the International Criminal Court has indicted Sudanese President Bashir for genocide, as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity, you might think that the Security Council would focus on avoiding such a war. But it has pretty much tried to avoid the subject. As for the Obama administration, it has refused to put serious pressure on Khartoum, and the policy seems to me to be failing. One measure of that is the recent crackdowns in northern Sudan on civil society there, perhaps a warm-up to the new war.

The Bush administration managed to get the CPA that brought the referendum and a respite from Sudanese war. If the Obama administration blows it so that war resumes, that will be a serious black mark for the White House. As a recent op-ed in the Times by Dave Eggers and John Prendergast noted correctly:

This is President Obama’s Rwanda moment, and it is unfolding now, in slow motion. It is not too late to prevent the coming war in Sudan, and protect the peace we helped build five short years ago.

The ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, issued a statement after the genocide indictment that argues that this may be the last chance for Sudan. He said:

The ICC’s decision to charge Bashir for genocide is the last chance to stop the genocide. For the last seven years, there has been an on going genocide against Darfuris. The world is failing to stop it….

In march 2003 President Al Bashir publicly gave orders not to “bring back any prisoners or wounded.” He declared that he wanted “only scorched earth”.

[Security Council members] have a chance to show their commitment to never again. Bashir’s strategy is to deny the crimes committed and to threaten more crimes against Darfuris and against Southern Sudan. …The issue of Darfur, the issue of Southern Sudan, should and could be solved. It is a matter of will.

President Bashir has always calibrated his actions to global pressure. When there is global scrutiny, he is more careful. I noticed that the first time with the Asian tsunami — he had reduced the scale of the Darfur slaughter, and then when the tsunami diverted the world’s attention, he cranked it up again.

We’ve seen, in Darfur and elsewhere, what a Bashir war looks like. And I fear that the failure of the U.S., Britain, Russia, China and France to keep a focus on Sudan in the run-up to the referendum is an invitation to Bashir to start yet another war.

By Dave Eggers and John Prendergast
From The New York Times

For many good reasons, Americans are doubting our ability as a nation to positively influence events abroad. We’re involved in two conflicts with dubious outcomes and we’ve begun to question whether any step we take, anywhere, will be the right one. But it was not long ago that the United States intervened abroad in a bold way that led to undeniably positive results.

From 1983 to 2005, more than two million people died and four million were forced from their homes in southern Sudan during a war between the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Shortly after George W. Bush entered the White House, he decided he would put the full diplomatic leverage of the United States to work in ending this war, one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century.

He succeeded. In 2005, the United States helped broker a comprehensive peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the southerners. It was an important moment for international diplomacy and a prime example of what the United States can do when it focuses its influence effectively.

In the clear, simple and eminently enforceable peace agreement, South Sudan was granted three crucial things: robust participation in the central government while ruling the south semi-autonomously; a 50-50 split of all oil revenues (the country’s oil is largely in the south); and the ability, in 2011, to vote to secede via referendum.

The assumption in Sudan is that when the referendum comes, southerners will vote overwhelmingly for secession. Since Sudan became independent in 1956, the people in the south have been marginalized, terrorized and subjected to countless human rights violations under successive regimes in Khartoum, and the possibility of forming a new nation in 2011 is viewed by southerners as a sacred right.

But the referendum is scheduled for January, a mere six months away, and all signs indicate that the Khartoum government will undermine the voting process or not recognize its results. The ruling National Congress Party has stalled on virtually every pertinent part of the peace agreement, and the national and local elections in April — which most international observers agree were stained by fraud — are a foreboding precedent.

If January comes and goes without a referendum, or if the results are manipulated, then fighting will break out. Both sides have been arming themselves since the peace agreement, so this iteration of north-south violence will be far worse than ever before. And if war resumes in the south, the conflict in Darfur, in western Sudan, will surely explode again.

To allow this triumph of international diplomacy to collapse and leave the people of southern Sudan vulnerable is unconscionable. But the questions are stark: what can the United States do to help prevent a war that could cost millions of lives? How can the United States once again influence the behavior of a government willing to commit crimes against humanity to maintain power?

These are certainly the worries of the Obama administration. Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, the administration’s special envoy to Sudan, recently said: “We have no leverage. We really have no pressure.”

But we do have leverage. The peace in Sudan is one the United States “owns.” Developing a more robust package of carrots and sticks — rolled out multilaterally when possible, unilaterally if necessary — would strengthen America’s diplomatic hand, not weaken it.

We propose that the threatened pressures should include placing sanctions on key ruling party officials, blocking debt relief from the International Monetary Fund, supporting International Criminal Court arrest warrants (including the one issued on Monday for Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, for three counts of genocide in Darfur), tightening the United Nations arms embargo and providing further support to the south.

For this diplomatic effort to be effective, real incentives should be on the table as well: If — and only if — true peace comes to Sudan, we could offer conditional, one-year suspensions of the International Criminal Court warrants and normalization of relations between Khartoum and Washington. And experienced American negotiating teams should be deployed immediately to support African Union and United Nations efforts already under way to end the war in Darfur and prevent one between the north and south, just as we did with the 2005 deal.

Bill Clinton often says his greatest regret as president is that he didn’t do more to stop the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. There were signs that trouble was brewing long before the killing started, but when it did begin, Mr. Clinton and the international community did not act decisively.

This is President Obama’s Rwanda moment, and it is unfolding now, in slow motion. It is not too late to prevent the coming war in Sudan, and protect the peace we helped build five short years ago.

Dave Eggers is the author of “What Is the What.” John Prendergast, the co-founder of the Enough Project, is the co-author with Don Cheadle of the forthcoming “The Enough Moment: Fighting to End Africa’s Worst Human Rights Crimes.”

July 9th, 2010

By Maggie Fick
From The Enough Project

JUBA, Sudan—Hundreds gathered on a rainy morning in Sudan’s southern capital of Juba to mark the countdown to southern Sudan’s self-determination referendum.

The southern referendum, slated for January 9, 2011, was a key provision of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, a landmark accord that ended decades of war between the Khartoum government and the southern rebels, the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement/Army.

With only six months until southerners cast their votes in a referendum that analysts widely believe will lead to separation of Sudan’s North and South, youth activists took to the streets of Juba today with one clear message: “separation is our ultimate goal.”

That was the slogan emblazoned on the bright orange shirts distributed en masse by a newly formed organization, the Southern Sudan Youth Forum for Referendum. One leader of the new group, Angelo Diing, a 32-year old businessman from Northern Bahr al Ghazal state, described the forum’s members as “young people who care about the future of southern Sudan.”

“We are all volunteering our time to help,” said Nya Willliam, a young southern Sudanese women who helped plan the inaugural rally of the youth forum. William said she is a civil servant in the semi-autonomous Government of Southern Sudan, though the organizers of the event are careful to note that the youth forum is not being sponsored by the southern government.

Diing said the forum plans to launch events in the coming months in all 10 states in the South. He said the goal of the group is to educate the mostly illiterate southern population about the referendum and to inform them that “this is their chance to decide” their future.

Men, women, and young children flocked to Juba’s football stadium in an ad hoc parade of motorcycles, “matatu” minivans, and the white 4×4s that are ubiquitous in this town, as organizers of the event threw t-shirts out the windows of cars and from their perches in the back of flatbed trucks. Yelling “SPLM Oyee,” a common refrain here, demonstrators voiced support for the South’s ruling party.

Basing themselves at a tall building in town that they’ve named the “Referendum House,” the Southern Sudan Youth Forum is one of a number of youth groups that have sprung up in recent months to raise awareness about the upcoming independence vote. All of these groups have a strong secessionist leaning, indicative of the general sentiment among southerners. Various signs attached to minivans and trucks reinforced these views: “No to the Arabization and Islamization of the South. Yes to Southern Sudan Independent,” read one banner.

Simon Kamis, 20, a secondary school student in Juba, said that he came to rally because he had been informed by his friends about it, and he said that he would definitely vote for secession. “We have been marginalized by the northerners,” Kamis said, echoing a common refrain among the population here that the Khartoum government has not done enough to fulfill the promises they made when they signed the CPA and promised to work with the southern government to “make unity attractive” to all Sudanese citizens.

Said one government official, “This is our ‘orange revolution.’”

By Alan Boswell
From IRIN

JUBA, 20 May 2010 (IRIN) – Southern Sudan will in early 2011 hold a referendum to determine whether to remain part of a united Sudan or become a separate state. The referendum was a core component of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended decades of conflict between the Southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the Khartoum government.

Should the south choose to separate, the two sides will have to negotiate over various key issues:

Borders – Five major border areas are in dispute. The first, and perhaps most potentially explosive, is around the oil-producing region of Abyei. The region will decide in a separate referendum also in January whether to join the south or the north. The borders were outlined in a July 2009 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, but demarcation has stalled. At the same time, the northern Misseriya community, largely drawn out of Abyei under the new borders, has denounced the ruling.

According to SPLM secretary-general, Pagan Amum, four other areas are in dispute: the northern-most border separating Renk county in Upper Nile from the north’s White Nile state, the borderline running north-south between the south’s Unity state and the north’s Southern Kordofan (this will determine who controls the Heglig oil field), whether the Bahr al-Arab river forms the exact border between the south’s Bahr el-Ghazal and Darfur in the north, and which river forms the exact western-most dividing line between Western Bahr el-Ghazal and Southern Darfur.

Oil – An estimated 82–95 percent of the oil fields are in the south (depending on where the border is drawn). Oil revenue accounts for 98 percent of Southern Sudan’s government revenue, and 60 percent of the national budget (according to 2008 figures). The sole export route for the landlocked south is a pipeline running to the north to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. Under the CPA, the two sides divide proceeds from oil pumped in the south. They will have to negotiate how to share oil revenue, as well as any user fees levied against the south for using the pipeline and refineries. The two parties must also negotiate how to honour current oil contracts.

Water – Under a 1929 agreement between Egypt (which had control over Sudan) and Britain, and a 1959 agreement between Egypt and Sudan, they control up to 90 percent of the water. Will Southern Sudan recognize these old treaties, or will it work with Nile basin countries in eastern Africa to work towards a “fair” accord? If it honours the colonial pacts, as it has indicated to the Egyptians, the south must then negotiate with Khartoum over what percentage of the 18.5 billion cubic metres of water designated to Sudan it can claim.

Nationality – The fate of southerners living in the north and northerners living in the south has to be negotiated. Questions of citizenship and rights will have to be addressed, as well as ease of travel between the two. Egypt and Sudan have signed a “Four Freedoms” agreement, granting Egyptians and Sudanese free movement, residence, work, and ownership in either of the two countries. Could something similar be decided between the north and south?

Debts and Assets – The south’s share of Sudan’s sizeable national debt – estimated by the International Monetary Fund in 2008 at US$34 billion – will be another issue. Analysts say the north will want a seceding south to take on a portion of its public debt burden. SPLM officials have rejected such suggestions, often accusing the north of using that borrowed money to wage war against southerners. There is also the question of national assets and the properties of state-owned companies in the south.

Currency – After the CPA, Sudan’s official currency, the dinar, was replaced with the Sudanese pound. If the south secedes, will the north and south continue under the pound? A newly independent south could choose to create its own currency, or switch for a period to an established foreign currency such as the US dollar. Analysts say a decision to maintain the Sudanese pound on both sides could bond the two economies together.

International Agreements – A state enters pacts every year with other countries on a variety of matters. Southern Sudan would have to decide whether to honour international agreements reached by Sudan, or whether to transfer or scrap some.

Security – The two parties must agree on what happens to key aspects of national security. They will have to decide how to demobilize the Joint Integrated Units and what would happen to the southern portion of Sudan’s national intelligence apparatus.

Executive summary

With its Sudan policy review, the Obama administration promised a diplomatic approach based on a clear-headed analysis of the situation on the ground across a variety of indicators. According to the strategy, the parties in Sudan would be held accountable for their actions, and incentives and pressures would be deployed in response to progress or backsliding on the ground. Now, almost six months after the policy review, an honest accounting of the “benchmarks” for progress in Sudan suggests how much important work remains to be done if broader conflict is to be avoided.

The national reforms for Sudan encompassed in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement have largely been jettisoned as the South’s ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM, and other opposition parties have been unable to overcome resistance by the regime to such reforms. While there have been major improvements in relations between Sudan and neighboring Chad, the security situation in both Darfur and South Sudan remains poor, with significant numbers of Sudanese still displaced and vulnerable. Humanitarian access in Darfur and in some key border areas between North and South Sudan remains highly limited as part of the Sudanese government’s continuing strategy to deliberately conceal the scale of human suffering in these areas. There has been an ongoing peace process in Darfur, accompanied by efforts to unify rebel groups. The efficacy and durability of this peace process, however, are sharply in question, all the more so given that the government of Sudan was engaged in a major offensive in Darfur as talks were underway.

The handling of the recently completed national elections is of particular concern. Despite overwhelming evidence that the environment surrounding elections was neither free nor fair, and a widespread opposition boycott, the Obama administration seemed reluctant to offer an honest assessment of the numerous obstacles to a free election in the run up to voting. The administration has since noted that the election did not meet international standards, but there has been no suggestion that the NCP would face a cost for subverting the will of the Sudanese people. Negotiators from the ruling National Congress Party in Khartoum and the SPLM have made some progress in laying the groundwork for the South’s independence referendum in January 2011, but the list of issues that need resolution to keep the referendum on track and manage the likely transition to independence is enormous.

Obviously, successfully negotiating the peaceful division of Africa’s largest country while simultaneously resolving the conflict in Darfur is a Herculean task, rich with dangers at virtually every step. There will most certainly have to be intensive dialogue not only among the parties in Sudan, but among key international actors, to reach an acceptable outcome and avert widespread conflict. At times, difficult negotiations will entail unsavory compromises. That said, the Obama administration built a diplomatic approach to Sudan around periodic, hard-nosed policy assessments of the situation on the ground and the judicious deployment of incentives and pressures in response to the situation on the ground. Yet to date, there are virtually no indications that the administration has held any of the parties to account for their actions since the policy review was announced, and senior administration officials appear badly divided on their approach to Sudan. There is a pressing need for Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama to become directly involved, not only to signal that Sudan is a priority of the administration, but to get the interagency “deputies” review process and the overall approach to diplomacy back on track.

Introduction

In January 2010, nine organizations – the Enough Project, Humanity United, Human Rights Watch, the Save Darfur Coalition, Genocide Intervention Network, American Jewish World Service, Physicians for Human Rights, i-Act, and Investors Against Genocide – co-authored the report “Clear Benchmarks for Sudan.” The report, noting the commitment of the Obama administration to conduct a quarterly review at a senior interagency level of indicators of progress in Sudan, spelled out many of the key factors that should be considered as part of any principled set of benchmarks over the course of the year.

Given that there is broad agreement among Sudanese and those concerned with the fate of Sudan that these benchmarks constitute the fundamental elements of a durable peace, it is imperative to revisit where the parties stand with respect to these key indicators. (While the Obama administration said it would hold the parties in Sudan accountable to benchmarks, it never clearly articulated exactly what would constitute these benchmarks or how they would be measured, thus the effort by the group of organizations which authored this and the previous benchmarks report.) This is all the more important given the critical issues facing Sudan on the eve of the South’s independence vote. The Obama administration, despite having held its first “deputies meeting” charged with reviewing Sudan’s benchmarks, appears to remain divided with respect to its own assessment of the situation on the ground and the degree to which it should rely on incentives and pressures respectively.

National reforms

Key Benchmarks: Discontinuation of the use of the national security law to arrest or otherwise intimidate civil society, human rights activists, and political actors; Peaceful demonstrations and other gatherings allowed without interference; Freedom for candidates for public office to campaign without intimidation; Concrete measures taken in Khartoum and Juba to ensure freedom of the press and freedom of association.

By and large, the ruling National Congress Party, or NCP, its southern counterpart the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM, and the international guarantors of Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement have made an unfortunate collective decision to largely overlook the elements of transformational national reform contained in the CPA. These key elements of the CPA were designed to change the fundamental dynamics of how Sudan is governed and help ease the center-periphery tensions that have been at the heart of the country’s repeated conflicts. By largely sidelining implementation of these provisions in the interests of short-term deal making, all parties are making future conflict more likely. Worse still, the NCP was able to block these reforms with very little protest from international guarantors to the CPA and other international actors.

Agreements reached in December 2009 between the Sudanese parties over a package of legislation made it clear that the ideal of credible national reforms had been sacrificed for political pragmatism that would allow the parties to “check the box” of national elections and make forward progress on referenda preparations. The laws passed dealt with the referenda for the South and Abyei, popular consultations, and a draconian national security law which allows the NCP to continue using the security services as a blunt object of its political will. During the protracted negotiations between the NCP and SPLM last fall, and at other points during the CPA process, the SPLM fought for provisions in the CPA aimed at democratic transformation. However, the SPLM along with other northern opposition parties were stymied by NCP leadership in the presidency and the ruling party’s majority hold on the National Assembly.

In its 2009 human rights report on Sudan, the U.S. State Department detailed a litany of human rights abuses and violations by the NCP, SPLM, and their respective security agents; these abuses ranged from extrajudicial killings by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, or SPLA, to incommunicado detention of suspected government opponents by Khartoum’s security forces.[i] If the Obama administration has the resources and ability to document such abuses, then it should muster the courage to confront the Sudanese governmental parties responsible for them.

North

The National Security Act, which grants government security forces extensive powers to arbitrarily detain and arrest citizens without charge, remains the legal foundation of Khartoum’s powers to control its population and has been regularly used to arrest and intimidate political actors seen as threatening by the ruling party in the North. The National Security Act passed only by mechanical majority of the NCP in the National Assembly, with SPLM and opposition parties voting against it. The failure of these reforms was not for lack of effort on the part of the SPLM or the opposition parties in the North. Unfortunately, the international community was notably silent and largely invisible during these negotiations, rather than making a clear statement that “verifiable progress” from Sudan required more substantial reform to these laws.

Security forces continue to arrest and detain activists that speak out against the NCP. On March 15, Sudanese security forces in the North detained and tortured an 18-year old member of the voter education group Girifna. The political activist was reportedly beaten by 13 men, including with electric wires, and interrogated about the campaign’s activities.[ii] Before being released, the activist was forced to sign a paper saying he would not participate in political activities and that he would report on Girifna’s activities.[iii]

Campaign gatherings and demonstrations were circumscribed and broken up by security forces in the North in the run up to the national elections. In early March, the National Elections Commission published new campaign rules that significantly limited political parties’ abilities to exercise their freedom of assembly. The new rule dictated that parties had to give 72 hours notice for rallies held inside party premises and obtain permission 72 hours in advance for meetings in public places. Political parties report that this law has been applied arbitrarily.[iv] There were also reports from members of the Popular Congress Party that national security officials had prevented the party from holding meetings and rallies on at least 10 occasions in Darfur.[v]

Press freedoms remain sharply curtailed in the North, and candidates’ unequal access to and state censorship of the media remained critical problems throughout the electoral process. In one instance, the presidential candidate of the Umma Party Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi was blocked from airing his 20-minute campaign program, as set out by election rules, because of several sensitive remarks the Sudanese state radio objected to—including those referencing Darfur and the current President Omer al-Bashir’s ICC arrest warrant.[vi] Though state media have given candidates free air time, much of regular programming in Khartoum concerns the activities of NCP officials and could be considered campaigning for the ruling party.[vii] Also troubling, a prominent journalist and critic of the NCP, Alhaj Warraj was charged by the National Security Agency on April 6 with “waging war against the state” for an article that he wrote for the independent daily Ajras al-Huriya.[viii]

South

In the South, the Government of Southern Sudan also took steps in the run up to the elections to limit the ability of opposition parties and “independent candidates” to campaign freely. Intimidation of local media and detainment of opposition party members by the ruling SPLM and its security forces—namely the army and the South Sudan Police Service—indicate that the SPLM has placed a low priority on reforms that could create more political space and freedom of expression for Sudan’s population. In early March, South Sudanese military police harassed and detained the driver and campaign agent of an independent candidate for the Central Equatoria governor’s seat, Alfred Ladu Gore. In January, three candidates of the Southern Sudan Democratic Forum were beat up, arrested, and detained long enough to make them miss the deadline for submitting applications for candidate nominations.[ix]

There have also been numerous instances of South Sudanese authorities arresting and detaining members of opposition parties, especially those belonging to the NCP and the SPLM-Democratic Change, or SPLM-DC. In one instance, security forces arrested three members of SPLM-DC in February, held them at a military detention center, and questioned them about their political activities for several hours.[x] In its preliminary report, The Carter Center stated that “the elections in the South experienced a high incidence of intimidation and the threat or use of force. There were numerous instances of the SPLA intimidating voters and being stationed too close to polling stations. State interference in the campaigns of opposition candidates was widespread in the South.”

The media environment in the South is particularly disconcerting given the lack of media laws in place, forcing campaigners and media outlets to operate in an arbitrary environment without clear rules.[xi] In this environment, independent media has had to suffer from random crackdowns and raids. In early March, South Sudanese security reportedly raided the Bakhita FM and Liberty FM radio stations, while arresting and threatening the stations’ two directors.

Security

Key benchmarks: Negotiation and implementation of a functioning ceasefire in Darfur; An end to all provision of weapons, training, or supplies of financing to paramilitary militia groups in the North, South, or Darfur; Full cooperation from all parties to facilitate U.N. peacekeepers’ freedom of movement and other essential conditions to do their work effectively; Full compliance by all relevant parties with the U.N. arms embargo for Darfur; An end to unlawful aerial bombardment in Darfur; Increased peace-building efforts by the Government of Southern Sudan to prevent escalation of chronic interethnic fighting; Standard, clear policies by the SPLA on engagement in tribal conflict, including the respective
roles and responsibilities of the army and police services; Disarmament campaign carried out responsibly by SPLA in consultation with local communities.

The security environment throughout Sudan has not improved in recent months. To varying degrees and through the use of differing tactics, both the NCP and the SPLM are responsible for exacerbating a number of security threats and failing to take proactive or preventive measures to reduce others.

Darfur

In Darfur, following a period of escalating violence and infighting between factions within the Sudan Liberation Army, the Government of Sudan launched a major military offensive, including aerial attacks, even while its negotiators were in Doha working out a shaky framework agreement with the Justice and Equality Movement, the most militarily significant Darfurian rebel group. These attacks killed hundreds and displaced somewhere between 45,000 and 100,000 civilians. International officials offered virtually no condemnation of these attacks by the Sudanese government and peacekeepers continue to be blocked from reaching the site of these attacks. This latest offensive is an egregious act in violation of international humanitarian and human rights law and a clear impediment to the Darfur peace process.

Despite public denials, there were also indications that the Sudanese government facilitated the move of a contingent of Lord’s Resistance Army fighters into South Darfur, signaling a continued willingness by the NCP to support proxy militias.

The overall security landscape in Darfur is characterized by low-level yet persistent and widespread insecurity. The heavy presence of nomadic groups who were formerly associated with the Janjaweed, armed by the Government of Sudan, and promised land by the government as reward for their participation in the conflict, offer the most serious threat to the average Darfuri. Continuing to bear arms, these groups secure land that does not belong to them, harass the displaced who return to try and reclaim it, and engage in general banditry. No attempt has been made by the Sudanese government at disarming these groups, despite repeated commitments in past peace agreements. In such a volatile security environment, it will be very difficult for the nearly 3 million people who remain displaced within Darfur or are living as refugees in neighboring Chad to return home safely any time soon. In spite of this, the NCP and some of its international partners continue to discuss efforts to close displaced camps, regardless of the residents’ security concerns.

Freedom of movement for peacekeepers in Darfur remains limited, in contravention of the Status of Forces Agreement signed between the U.N./A.U. hybrid peacekeeping force, or UNAMID, and the Sudanese government. In November and January, the U.N. secretary general reported on 63 combined incidents in which a UNAMID patrol was denied passage by the Sudanese Armed Forces, its auxiliary forces, or armed rebel movements.[xii] UNAMID continues to be blocked from doing its job because of fighting perpetrated by rebel groups, government militias, and the military. It also continues to operate in an environment in which hijackings and abductions are too frequent. See the “Humanitarian Access” section for more on this topic. The secretary general’s report, which noted that violations of the U.N. arms embargo continue to be committed by most major armed actors, does not bode well for the future of effective peacekeeping in the region.[xiii]

South Sudan

U.N. officials in South Sudan have indicated that the number of internal conflicts has risen sharply in 2010, with 450 killed and 60,000 displaced within the first three months of the year. While a recent internal UNMIS assessment found that the situation in Jonglei state—site of much of the intertribal violence that wracked the South in 2009—is less tense than at the same time last year, the chronic drivers of insecurity in the South persist, and the broader political climate in Sudan in the run up to the southern referendum does not bode well for the likelihood of further violence this year. Much of the violence in the South continues to be associated with the civilian disarmament campaign led by the SPLA currently sweeping the South. The purported aim of this campaign was to bolster security in preparation for the elections by removing small arms from the hands of civilians. However, past disarmament campaigns in the South have proven that communities will resist giving up their weapons if they feel that their security cannot be guaranteed by the government’s armed forces, and many of the disarmament efforts to date in the South appear to have exacerbated insecurity and stoked tensions among rival and neighboring tribes. The goal of broader disarmament remains laudable, but should be pursued in the context of accelerated support for comprehensive reform of the security sector, including disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration programs and efforts to increased the effectiveness and accountability of the SPLA and the police. International actors should also closely monitor the flow of arms and weapons to militias operating in border areas.

Security along the 2,100 kilometer North-South border, where six sections remain disputed, is another cause for concern. The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Sudan, or UNMIS, has faced challenges in its ability to respond to violence and to prevent it, both due to its mandate (which is currently up for revision and renewal at the U.N. Security Council) and its understanding and interpretation of its mandate on the ground.[xiv] Furthermore, UNMIS has not been granted full access by both the Sudan Armed Forces, or SAF, and the SPLA to certain critical and contentious areas along the border, most notably along the boundaries of Abyei, an oil-rich, contested border zone (see below for more on Abyei). The failure of both parties to enable UNMIS full access—per its mandate and per the parties’ CPA obligations—to these sensitive areas is cause for concern as the referendum approaches, with Sudan’s internal border still in dispute.

Humanitarian access

Key Benchmarks: Agreements to facilitate humanitarian access are being respected and implemented; Improvement in security for humanitarian organizations, and steps taken to investigate and prosecute attacks on these organizations; Delivery of sufficient aid, and access for new humanitarian NGOs, as needed, to reach vulnerable populations. Freedom for humanitarian organizations to report honestly on conditions on the ground; Aid agencies allowed to fully implement programs offering “non-essential” services, such as those assisting women who have been survivors of sexual violence or other forms of abuse.

Seven months after President Bashir’s expulsion of 13 international aid agencies from Darfur and dissolution of three Sudanese organizations last March, the U.N. Panel of Experts observed a “widespread decline in the delivery of services to affected communities.”[xv] Thanks to major efforts by other international and Sudanese humanitarian organizations, Oxfam Great Britain noted in March: “A major humanitarian emergency has largely been averted at least in the sense that what is still one of the biggest crises in the world has not got substantially worse.”[xvi] But it should also be noted that since the expulsion, support for “non-essential” services has suffered dramatically. The number of services available to survivors of sexual violence, for example, have massively declined even as sexual violence and assault remain prevalent in Darfur¾an unsurprising effect given that 14 of the 16 expelled or shut down organizations had projects working to support survivors of sexual violence. Emergency efforts by the humanitarian community to fill this gap in services have thus far failed to return the level of gender expertise in Darfur to that existing pre-expulsion.[xvii]

The U.N. secretary general has rebuked the Sudanese government for denying UNAMID access to sites of recent fighting and vulnerability, including camps for the displaced. In recent months, UNAMID, other U.N. personnel, and humanitarian aid agencies continue to have little to no access to vulnerable areas in Darfur because of high insecurity, or claims of high insecurity, largely perpetrated by the Sudanese government. Meanwhile, the gap in services for Darfur’s most vulnerable, including survivors of sexual violence and children, remains.

Aid and U.N. workers operate under the threat of hijackings, abductions, and harassment by armed actors, as well as fears of expulsion by the Sudanese government. There have been little or no serious efforts by the Government of Sudan to hold local actors accountable for attacks on the United Nations or humanitarian assets and property. Indeed, the Government of Sudan widely looted vehicles and other supplies from humanitarian agencies that were kicked out of Darfur in March 2009 and continues to use them with impunity. Since the expulsion of foreign aid agencies in March 2009, the number of foreign aid workers and U.N. personnel kidnapped has increased.[xviii] The insecurity of the current operational environment has forced many agencies to limit their presence to areas around large towns, leaving some of the most needy populations, in remote and rural areas, without access to critical services. On October 22, 2009, a staff member of the International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC, was kidnapped in West Darfur and kept hostage for 147 days. As a direct consequence, the ICRC scaled back its field activities in the region. The staff member was only recently rescued with the help of the Sudanese government, signifying cooperation on the part of Khartoum at least in this respect.

Harassment and abduction of U.N. personnel have become more blatant and frequent. On March 5, a UNAMID assessment patrol on its way to investigate the security and humanitarian situation in Deribat, in the Jebel Marra region, was ambushed by unidentified armed men. Alarmingly, about 60 peacekeepers were abducted and released the next day, stripped of their weapons, ammunition, and vehicles.[xix] In response, the Sudanese government chastised UNAMID for ignoring the advice of the military to not go into that area, underscoring the government’s unwillingness to facilitate UNAMID movement throughout the region.[xx]

Humanitarian access to areas of prolonged or recent fighting remains severely curtailed. In the aftermath of recent violence in Jebel Marra, neither the United Nations, nor any other international humanitarian organization has had access to vulnerable populations in eastern Jebel Marra. The latest U.N. overview of the humanitarian situation in Sudan reports that “humanitarian partners have not been able to enter conflict-affected areas at all—a situation that leaves local civilians exposed to significant risks,” and the international community without an independent assessment of the level of need.[xxi] Violence in the area has already forced Medicins du Monde, the only medical organization with ground presence in eastern Jebel Marra, to suspend its operations.[xxii]

Humanitarian organizations continue to operate under the threat of government expulsion, which occurs arbitrarily and for ambiguous reasons. Within such an environment, organizations are forced to self-censor for the sake of being able to stay in the country to continue providing services to vulnerable populations. Without the freedom to report honestly on conditions on the ground, the international community is without an important source of information and monitoring.

Darfur peace process

Key Benchmarks: Establishment of an inclusive peace process and free participation of credible and independent civil society groups in peace process; Pre-existing commitments made in earlier talks and agreements fulfilled by the parties; Practical steps on the ground taken by parties to promote peace and improve security; Concrete steps toward accountability for crimes committed in Darfur.

Though Darfur peace talks are currently underway between the Sudanese government, rebel factions, and the U.N.-A.U. Mediation team, the progress made thus far appears to lack credibility when contrasted with the government’s continued military actions on the ground. Khartoum’s continuation of violence against rebel groups and civilians, as well as the general lack of transparency throughout the peace process suggest that a concrete, inclusive, and sustainable peace agreement will not emerge at the talks’ conclusion. Preliminary agreements have been signed between the government and the Justice and Equality Movement, or JEM, as well as with the rebel coalition known as the Liberation and Justice Movement, or LJM, but these agreements have only secured limited ceasefires and represented promises that negotiations over substantial issues for the future of Darfur (including those relating to power and wealth sharing arrangements, restitution for survivors, and accountability) will take place. So far, no peace deal has emerged and the ceasefire appears to have already been broken.[xxiii] The Government of Sudan has appeared more interested in further dividing rebel groups and pulling off a “successful” presidential election in Darfur than it has in securing a lasting peace. Equally corrosive to the process, the rebel movements engaged in the talks continue to bicker among themselves—while key leaders such as Abdel Wahid Al Nur refuse to participate at all in the talks. Like earlier failed peace talks for Darfur, little serious thought appears to have gone into the actual monitoring and implementation of the agreements, virtually assuring that they will remain hollow promises.

Of serious concern is the lack of transparency over the peace process itself, a fact that has prevented the negotiations from being truly inclusive. Civil society has thus far played a limited role in the current negotiations and sources on the ground say civil society representatives will continue to be sidelined in the substantive negotiation process moving forward.

In addition to the major offensive in Jebel Marra, the government also bombed the Jebel Moon area, a JEM stronghold, just prior to the start of peace talks. Humanitarian access to the two areas continues to be impossible, with no effort on the Sudanese government’s part to facilitate aid workers’ access to the vulnerable and newly displaced. If progress toward peace in Darfur is truly to be evaluated by the situation on the ground, as the administration indicated in its Sudan policy review, Khartoum’s decision to renew fighting should be a red flag indicator that the regime remains intent on pursuing a military solution in Darfur, despite the lofty rhetoric of Doha. The administration has also shown no willingness to confront with its international partners the intransigence of spoilers and holdouts among the rebel leaders.

No steps have been taken by the Sudanese government to advance accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. For more on the current situation, see the “Accountability” section.

Elections

Key benchmarks:Sudan’s constitutional protections of freedoms of assembly and expression ensured by the NCP and SPLM in the context of the current electoral process in northern and southern Sudan, respectively; Sudanese media free to cover and report on election related events, trends, and developments; Effective response by Sudan’s National Electoral Commission, or NEC, to concerns expressed by international and domestic monitoring bodies – including political party representatives – during the voter registration process in order to prepare for the polling period in April, including investigating claims of fraud; International and domestic monitors granted freedom of movement and freedom to report on election related activities in the coming months; Concerted steps by the NCP and SPLM to prevent electoral violence; Active measures by the NEC to educate Sudanese voters on the electoral process, particularly in areas with comparatively low levels of voter registration.

While the national elections were once seen as a cornerstone of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and a major step forward in Sudan’s democratic transformation, their ultimate reality was one of lost opportunity and disappointment. It was clear from previously cited concerns (see “National reforms” section) regarding the overall security environment and lack of national reforms, that free, fair, and credible elections were not possible in Sudan. Regrettably, the lack of an enabling environment for a free and fair election was largely publicly ignored by the U.S. special envoy for Sudan, and the Obama administration made clear early in the process that it was prepared to accept practically any process at the ballot box in favor of “checking the elections box” on the CPA list and moving on.

In the days leading up to the voting period, almost every major opposition party boycotted elections to various degrees, including the NCP’s main political opponents, the SPLM. On March 31, the southern ruling party announced the withdrawal of its presidential candidate, Yasir Arman, as well as its decision to boycott elections in Darfur, citing continued violence and election irregularities in the region.[xxv] Most major northern opposition parties also boycotted the elections, citing the state’s monopoly over the media, its manipulation of electoral legislation, and the oppressive media and campaigning environment in place. In advance of the elections, a large number of groups, including Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, the Enough Project, and the Carter Center highlighted serious irregularities and the lack of a free environment for the ballot.

In Darfur, elections were engineered to consolidate NCP control over the region. NCP manipulation of the vote could be found in the counting of the 2008 census, the way in which electoral districts were drawn, the registration process, and the bribery of local leaders. Not only did the 2008 census not take into account a majority of Darfur’s 2.6 million displaced, it inflated the proportion of pro-NCP groups, even counting new arrivals into Darfur. Electoral districts were drawn in a way that gave areas with greater NCP support more seats. The rebel stronghold of Jebel Marra, with an estimated population of 1 million, was allocated zero seats in the national assembly. Government security forces were frequently stationed outside of registration centers, creating an environment of intimidation during the registration process for Darfuris used to the harassment and abuses committed by these same authorities.[xxvi] The NCP also offered money, gifts, and government positions to local leaders to solidify electoral alliances and put in place candidates that were pro-NCP.[xxvii]

The actual voting period was marred by a long list of technical irregularities and flaws. The confusion caused by last-minute changes to voter registry lists, mistakes on ballots, and arbitrary voter identification procedures discouraged voter participation, and has the potential to benefit one party over the others. The use of intimidation and force against voters, observers, polling staff, candidates, and party affiliates was also documented. In Darfur, a scheme to extort internally displaced voters to cast their ballot for NCP was exposed.[xxviii] According to Carter Center and E.U. observers, the administration of the entire electoral period, from the installation of an environment hostile to free and fair elections to the logistically flawed election period itself, fell short of meeting international standards.[xxix]

Both ruling parties, the NCP and the SPLM, should be held to account for their failure to support efforts to create an environment in which opposition parties could campaign freely and citizens could go to the polls without fear of intimidation or falling victim to violence. The parties did not invest early or substantially enough in setting up the National Electoral Commission, or NEC, to be a neutral governing body that had the capacity to conduct extensive voter education efforts, to pre-empt the myriad logistical failures that took place, and to be an arbiter between competing political interests of what the correct electoral environment and conduct of elections should be. Recent allegations by the SPLM that the NEC could have done more to anticipate and prevent the technical difficulties that marred the polling period particularly in the South may be well founded, but the SPLM is also at fault for not pushing the NEC into a more active role during the protracted electoral process.

Abyei

These include the following: Rapid and mutually agreed upon formation of the Abyei referendum commission; Full implementation of the Abyei Protocol and PCA’s ruling; Unreserved support for demarcation of the border; Support for a process to develop guarantees for nomadic tribes to access traditional grazing lands; Development of the popular consultation process (see below) to promote popular political transition in Southern Kordofan; Improved monitoring of Abyei’s oil revenues, payment of past arrears from Khartoum to Juba, and transparent functioning of the Unity Fund.

The situation in Abyei remains largely unchanged since last July’s ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, or PCA. The committee charged with overseeing the implementation of the ruling and the demarcation of the newly defined border have been impeded in their tasks by political obstruction, security concerns, and a lack of funds desperately needed for development in Abyei and for dissemination of information about the ruling. Ignorance on the ground about the significance of the border has emboldened the Government of Sudan to prevent the demarcation as a pretense to argue to the Misseriya that they can still win back lands lost and will still be able to vote as an entire people in the Abyei referendum. This is not the case. The borders have been defined and are known to all regardless of whether the demarcation occurs or not. For its part, the SPLM has attempted to push the demarcation process forward, but the NCP has continuously refused to provide equipment or sufficient security support (as clearly requested by the SPLM members of the Abyei Oversight Committee, in large part because the Popular Defense Forces and other militias have been a major impediment to the demarcation team). For this and other reasons, the NCP is at fault for not summoning the political will to invest the necessary resources on the ground in Abyei to implement the PCA’s ruling, as both parties repeatedly pledged to do in the immediate aftermath of the court’s decision; the NCP may well see continued foot dragging as being in their best interest absent any international cost for doing so.

Although the Abyei administration was recently replaced with new leadership last month, much work will need to be done before the January referendum for the region in order to diffuse tensions that are bound to arise when the contentious issue of residency in Abyei is raised prior to the referendum. For one, the Abyei Referendum Commission—the body that will rule on the residency debate—has yet to be appointed. In addition, grazing rights for the nomadic Misseriya herders—a disenfranchised population frequently employed by Khartoum during the civil war as frontline troops in the South—must be secured prior to the referendum; this requires an honest commitment and willingness to compromise from both the NCP and SPLM which has been profoundly lacking to date on the emotionally and politically charged issue of Abyei.

Along the contested North-South border east of Abyei, tensions are escalating between the Misseriya and Dinka populations who both have a stake in the rich grazing land in northern Unity state in the South; the recent border conference in Unity’s capital, Bentiu, did little to resolve the deep-seated fears of both the Misseriya based in Southern Kordofan and the Dinka populations in Unity state. It appears the agreement was pushed through by Unity state’s SPLM leadership, who sought a win before the elections at all cost. Given that the agreement did not have the buy-in of key players such as the SPLA, who were conducting a disarmament campaign in Unity and were strongly opposed to allowing the Misseriya to enter Unity with their weapons (which the herders have traditionally carried in order to protect their cattle), this agreement is unlikely to promote stability in this already tense border area. In the weeks since the agreement was signed, SPLA and Misseriya have clashed near the contested North-South border, Misseriya elders have accused the SPLA of “ethnic cleansing,” and the SPLA spokesman in Juba has called for the Misseriya to abandon their weapons before entering southern territory to graze, which contradicted the border agreement signed in March.[xxx] The current situation along this section of the North-South border is reminiscent of the situation in the run-up to the May 2008 clashes in Abyei that sent the entire population of the town fleeing southward. Unless both the NCP and SPLM choose to stop making the situation on the ground worse through accusatory statements at the Khartoum and Juba levels, loss of life along the border is likely to continue as the referendum approaches.

Finally, improved monitoring of Abyei’s oil revenues, a commitment made by both parties in the Trilateral Points, has not been implemented by the NCP or the SPLM. Both parties are at fault for not attempting to promote greater transparency into the functioning of the Unity Fund.[xxxi]

Popular consultation

Key Benchmarks: Necessary steps for peaceful and successful popular consultations, and sustainable peace in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, include the following: Progress on the demarcation of the Abyei and North/South borders, including resolution of border disputes on southern borders of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile; Processes for broad engagement with constituencies throughout the two states; Improved integration of the Joint/Integrated Units, police, and state administrations; Political space and security for free and fair elections.

The popular consultation process will begin in earnest following the election of the state legislature in Blue Nile, but the process for Southern Kordofan will be more complicated, given that elections at the state level in Southern Kordofan have been delayed until another census can be conducted in the state.

Although some strides have been made by the parties, particularly in Southern Kordofan, in working together at a political level, sustainable peace in the Transitional Areas will require significant buy-in from local populations, who will need to be broadly engaged if the process of popular consultation is to live up to its name. Although it is too early to issue a verdict on the attempts by the parties to make these processes inclusive, successful, and peaceful, it is certain that sustained attention from the NCP and SPLM will be needed in the coming months if this region is avoid heating up before the likely separation of the North and South. Recent conferences in both Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan that brought together civil society, political parties, and traditional leaders are a welcome first step, and the need for civil society to begin education around the popular consultation process, and in general about accountability of their legislators (appointed or elected), remains crucial to the conduct of a genuine and inclusive process. The promise of Joint Integrated Units, or JIUs, under the CPA has not been met. Across the three border areas, including South Kordofan and Blue Nile State, SAF and SPLA soldiers remain under the distinct control of their armies. These forces have not only been ineffective in providing security, they have at times generated further insecurity.[xxxii]

Southern referendum

Key benchmarks: Rapid and mutually agreed upon formation of the southern Sudan Referendum Commission; Progress toward the full demarcation of the North-South border; No use of direct or proxy violence in an effort to derail the referendum; No actions that subvert the will of the people in casting their votes freely; Neither party negotiating in such a way that makes direct North-South violence more likely.

Despite the agreement reached in December between the NCP and SPLM on a package of laws related to the election and referenda, the South Sudan Referendum Commission has yet to be formed. At an Intergovernmental Authority on Development summit in mid-March 2010 in Nairobi, the parties committed to establish the Southern Referendum Commission by May. If this agreement is kept, the commission will have just over six months to prepare for the vote; the precedent of both the national census and the elections demonstrates that delays, distractions, and technical difficulties are the norm for Sudanese political processes. While substantial delays in the census and elections were tolerated, the referendum is a “redline” for the SPLM and the South; any delay in the holding of the referendum could immediately spark a return to war. It is important to note that the process of selecting and approving the members of the Referendum Commission will significantly impact the preparation for the referendum and the technical process itself. The Obama administration must closely monitor the parties in the coming months in order to ensure forward progress and ample preparation for the referendum before it is too late, and this process starts with the appointment of a commission that can capably, credibly, and fairly prepare for and carry out the process.

The technical process of holding the referendum is arguably of least concern for the parties and the CPA’s guarantors, although the recent national election underscores how much major work remains to be done on carrying out the logistics of elections in Sudan. Mismanagement at the administrative or procedural level (and the resulting disorganization, fraud, and possible manipulation) may in fact result in doubts about the results of the referendum, and leave the South and the international community in a very difficult position. Given the importance of a credible process that will not leave questions about the acceptability of the outcome and that will allow the South and international community to stand fully behind the results, the South and the international community need to focus on both the political and procedural framework for the referendum.

The need to come to agreement on a number of issues related to the referendum’s outcome is the paramount concern if a peaceful transition is expected in 2011 and renewed hostilities are to be averted. Failure by the parties to engage seriously and in good faith in order to reach initial agreements related to wealth sharing, and assets and liabilities, among other issues, is a recipe for disaster before or after the referendum. But before these initial agreements can be reached, the crucial question of where the North-South border lies must be answered—although no single issue should hold the referendum itself hostage.

There are currently five distinct sections along the border that remain undemarcated. With tensions along various parts of this border already heightened over issues such as access to traditional grazing areas for pastoral groups, neither party can afford to leave this simmering issue unresolved. Absent concerted efforts by both sides to resolve the multiple border disputes, tensions will continue to rise.

The intercommunal violence in the South that has killed thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands more in the past year and a half is a direct threat to the referendum, but not only because the violence is having a destabilizing impact on the South. Another great concern is that the NCP could be involved in stoking local tensions or providing ammunition to disenfranchised populations; this tried-and-true tactic of proxy violence is not new for Khartoum. If this is the case, this strategy could impact the ability of the South to peacefully hold its referendum in a secure environment.

Accountabilty

Key Benchmarks: Cooperation with the ICC or agreement to a robust accountability mechanism, such as the African Union’s recently proposed hybrid court for Darfur

The Sudanese government continues its complete noncooperation with the International Criminal Court arrest warrant for President Bashir. Since its inception in October, the African Union High Level Implementation Panel on Darfur, or AUHIP, has yet to make progress on implementing its recommended hybrid court for Darfur. The panel has instead been devoting increased attention to issues around CPA implementation and the elections. The NCP has also stated, as expected, that Bashir’s electoral victory will prove that the allegations against him are false and that the Sudanese, especially the people of Darfur, reject the International Criminal Court’s efforts. The complete lack of accountability to date only makes it more likely that the NCP will be undeterred from committing violence and crimes against its civilian population in the future.

Conclusion

As the review of the benchmarks makes clear, the situation in Sudan remains one of considerable concern. The deputies committee of the U.S. government charged with reviewing the situation in Sudan on a quarterly basis does not appear to be functioning as designed, and has not resulted in clear policy choices being presented to President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, and respective agency heads. Indeed, one of the few consistent trends in U.S. policy toward Sudan has been the deep divisions in perspective between that of the U.S. special envoy and the leadership of the State Department and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

While it is obvious, it bears repeating: Africa’s largest country is likely to split into two in a matter of months, yet there is not a coherent policy approach from the U.S. government and that has undercut its ability to shape effective international diplomacy toward Sudan.

While the administration has made a calculated effort to avoid confrontational language with Sudan, it now appears the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, and the ruling NCP has understandably interpreted the lack of condemnation for repeated abuses as either disinterest or acceptance. The time has come for President Obama and Secretary Clinton to own Sudan policy far more directly—or the risk of further missteps, miscalculation, and violence will only grow.

[i] U.S. State Department 2009, “2009 Human Rights Report: Sudan” (2010), available at www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/af/135978.htm.
[ii] See Africa Centre for Justice and Peace Studies, “ACJUPS Condemns the Silencing of Political Activists” (2010), available at http://www.acjps.org/Publications/3-19-10ACJPSCondemnstheSilencing.htm.
[iii] See Human Rights Watch, “Sudan: Government Repression Threatens Fair Elections” (2010), available at http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/03/21/sudan-government-repression-threatens-fair-elections.
[iv] See Carter Center, “Carter Center Welcomes Sudan’s Elections Campaign, Urges Steps to Ensure Open and Inclusive Process,” Statement, March 18,2010, available at http://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/sudan-031810.html.
[v] See Human Rights Watch, “Sudan: Government Repression Threatens Fair Elections” (2010), available at http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/03/21/sudan-government-repression-threatens-fair-elections .
[vi] Sudan Tribune, “Sudan radio prevents candidate from addressing Bashir’s ICC warrant,” March 4, 2010, available at http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article34316.
[vii] See Human Rights Watch, “Sudan: Government Repression Threatens Fair Elections” (2010), available at http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/03/21/sudan-government-repression-threatens-fair-elections.
[viii] See the Committee to Protect Journalists, “Sudanese journalist charged with ‘waging war’ against state,” April 14, 2010, available athttp://cpj.org/2010/04/sudanese-journalist-charged-with-waging-war-agains.php.
[ix] See Human Rights Watch, “Sudan: Government Repression Threatens Fair Elections”.
[x] Ibid.
[xi] Sudan Tribune, “Media leader: South Sudan journalism ‘a game of football without rules,’” March 6, 2010, available at http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article34335.
[xii] United Nations Security Council, “Report of the Secretary-General on UNAMID” (2009), available at http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N09/594/37/PDF/N0959437.pdf?OpenElement, pg. 3
[xiii] See United Nations Security Council, “Report of the Panel of Experts” (2009), available at http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1591/reports.shtml.
[xiv] See Human Rights Watch, “No One to Intervene” (2009), available at http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/06/21/no-one-intervene-0.
[xv] United Nations Security Council. “Report of the Panel of Experts,” pg. 65.
[xvi] See Relief Web, “Northern Sudan: 12 months since expulsion,” available at http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/MINE-839RXY?OpenDocument.
[xvii] See Physicians for Human Rights, “Action Agenda: Realizing Treatment and Support for Women and Girls in Darfur” (2010), available at http://phrblog.org/blog/2010/03/22/women-in-darfur-one-year-on/.
[xviii] Ibid.
[xix] See Reuters, “Sudan’s army says rebels ambushed UN-AU peacekeepers,” March 9, 2010, available at http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE62800Z20100309.
[xx] See Reuters, “Sudan rebukes UN-AU force over Darfur ambush,” March 11, 2010, available at http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE62A02E20100311.
[xxi] See U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Sudan Humanitarian Overview,” 6 (2) (2010) available at http://www.unsudanig.org/docs/Sudan%20Humanitarian%20Overview%20vol6%20no2%20Feb%202010.pdf.
[xxii] See Relief Web, “Sudan: Darfur team evacuated and mission on hold,” available at http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/AZHU-83CQ5C?OpenDocument&query=Darfur%20aid.
[xxiii] See Reuters “Sudan, Darfur rebels exchange blame over ceasefire,” April 5, 2010, available at http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6342A120100405.
[xxiv] See Médicins du Monde, “Fighting in the Jebel Marra: 100,000 Civilians Deprived of Access to Healthcare,” Press Release, No date, available at http://www.medecinsdumonde.org/gb/Press/Press-release/International/Combats-dans-le-Jebel-Mara-100-000-civils-prives-d-acces-aux-soins.
[xxv] Reuters, “South Sudan party withdraws presidential candidate,” March 31, 2010, available at http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE62U2AL.htm.
[xxvi] See Carter Center, “Preliminary Statement on Sudan’s Voter Registration,” Statement, November 30, 2009, available at http://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/peace/democracy/Carter%20Center%20Sudan%20statement_113009.pdf.
[xxvii] To read a more detailed analysis of the NCP’s management of elections in Darfur, see International Crisis Group “Rigged Elections in Darfur and the Consequences of a Probable NCP Victory in Sudan” (2010).
[xxviii] See Al-Jazeera, “Scam mars Darfur polls,” April 13, 2010, available at http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/04/20104134594185402.html.
[xxix] See Carter Center “The Carter Center Election Observation Mission in Sudan Presidential, Gubernatorial, and Legislative Elections, April 2010,” Preliminary Statement, April 17, 2010, available at http://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/sudan-041710.html; Relief Web, “Preliminary Statement: Sudanese elections show significant deficiencies against international standards but pave the way for future democratic progress,” available at http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/SNAA-84N6YP?OpenDocument.
[xxx] See Sudan Tribune, “13 people killed after fresh fighting between SPLA and Misseriya,” March 20, 2010, available at http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article34477; Sudan.net Discussion Board, available at http://www.sudanforum.net.
[xxxi] For background on the Unity Fund, see International Crisis Group, “Sudan: Breaking the Abyei Deadlock” (2007), available at www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/africa/horn-of-africa/sudan/B047-sudan-breaking-the-abyei-deadlock.aspx.
[xxxii] Sudan Human Security Baseline Project, “Uncertain Future: Armed Violence in Southern Sudan.” Sudan Working Paper 20 (2010). pg. 28.

We in journalism are pretty good at covering wars after they start. But we make a lousy early warning system about wars that are approaching on the horizon. That’s mostly because until people start shooting, there’s not much to write about or film; the prospect of war just isn’t very dramatic, especially in visual terms.

But we should all try to pay more attention to the risk of a catastrophic war ahead in Sudan. Everybody knows it may be coming, but until the bullets start flying, it simply isn’t going to get the attention it merits.The big news story in the last couple of days has been President Bashir’s reelection as president in Sudan, in a seriously flawed election, but behind the scenes the real question is whether the north-south civil war is going to resume.

After running around Sudan for a week, I don’t know the answer, and I don’t think anybody else does either — including President Bashir. I think he’s keeping his options open. The last iteration of the north-south civil war (between a largely Muslim north and a largely Christian/animist south) killed about 2 million people, making it far more lethal than the Darfur (which was an intra-north confict). The next north-south war, if there is one, will be extraordinarily ugly.

The last north-south war ended with a Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, that promised a referendum allowing the south to choose unity or secession. That referendum is scheduled to take place in January. The southerners are expected to vote overwhelmingly for secession. But most of Sudan’s oil — which keeps the north’s economy going — is in the south, so there are real questions about whether the north will allow its oil wells to secede.

There are some reasons to be optimistic. The way to get the oil out, for now, is to drill in the south and pipe it up through the north to Port Sudan. So even if the oil belongs to the south, it will have to export it through the north and pay pipeline fees. In effect, oil revenue will continue to be shared, and negotiating that oil-sharing formula will be one of the great challenges in the coming months. I asked President Salva Kiir of the south about that, and had the impression that the two sides haven’t come close to any meeting of the minds on oil-sharing. Yet ultimately, unless they do agree, neither will get anything. If they go to war again, the southerners will lose the oil revenue that they depend upon. And the north may think that it can use its military power to control the wells and protect the oil pipeline, but it’s probably wrong: the south would destroy the pipeline in, say, South Kordofan, so that oil exports would halt.

Another reason to be optimistic is simply that both sides are exhausted by war. Neither wants another. In the past, Darfuris were central to the north’s armed forces, but it is much less able to rely on them today. The world is also much more attentive to Sudanese abuses, and there would be an immediate outcry if Khartoum unleashed militias on the south once more. Other parts of the Sudan are restive, and Bashir may be nervous that if he fights with the south, other parts of the country will try to slip away as well. It’s also ground for optimism that Bashir and his aides all say that they will allow the referendum and honor its results.

On the other hand, Bashir has made agreement after agreement that he has subsequently dishonored. He has zero credibility. And as a matter of national honor, it will be difficult to let the country’s resources go, especially because the process will play into a narrative of perfidious Westerners helping to steal the oil of an Arab country. Moreover, the two sides will face a thousand border and divorce disputes in a context of enormous distrust.

For example, the oil-rich border area of Abyei will have a referendum on whether it should count as part of the north or the south. There are real ambiguities about who should be allowed to vote, and a considerable amount of vote-rigging is sure to take place. It will be very difficult for either side to allow the other to get Abyei. For example, at one point I asked three educated southern Sudanese with me what they would think if the north held onto Abyei. Each one of them said that even if the north allowed the rest of the south to secede, Abyei would be enough to justify another war.

Then there are the uncertain borders and tribal conflicts along it. Many of the northern Arab tribes are nomadic and are deeply troubled by the idea that their grazing rights will be interrupted by secession. I spent a bit of time in North Bahr al Ghazal state, and you feel the tensions there. One recent dispute nearly broke into war because of this back story, people told me: A Dinka from the south had been kidnapped 15 years ago and enslaved by an Arab tribe, but later promised that if he stayed as a cattle herd, he would be paid one cow for each year he worked. Last year, with secession approaching, he said he wanted to go home to the south and asked for his 15 cows. The owner refused to pay him anything and a long and bitter dispute ensued. In February, the Dinka herdsman murdered 7 of the Arabs and fled south. That led the Arab tribe to mass along the border and prepare for a retaliatory raid that could have precipitated something much broader. The Sudanese armed forces backed up the Arab tribe, bringing in scores of tanks and technicals (pick-ups with mounted machine guns). The north’s goal may also have been to push south a bit, because the border isn’t clear, oil may be in the ground, and so this was an opportunity to stake a position in a disputed area. In the end, the Dinka tribal elders paid compensation to the Arabs and the murderer was arrested and thrown into jail in Aweil, and for now the dispute seems to be resolved. But it was a reminder of how easily things can go wrong (and recent fighting further to the west, in West Bahr al Ghazal, makes the same point).

Even if the north and south manage to divorce peacefully, there will also be problems in Blue Nile and South Kordofan states. In my visits to each state a couple of years ago, people there seemed to think that they would have the option of joining the south. In fact, the CPA makes it pretty clear that they’ll be stuck in the north. Secession of the south, leaving them behind, could ignite troubles in each area.

In short, war isn’t inevitable, but it’s a real risk. The U.S. and other countries played a huge role in achieving the CPA and they need to be very focused on making sure that the referendum is implemented. There’s a strong belief in the south that the north is planning to nurture tribal conflicts by handing out guns and encouraging grievances, so that the south will be too chaotic to hold the referendum on time. That may be true, but it’s also true that the south is corrupt and has had poor governance, encouraging grievances of its own. We can help resolve them, and we can also make it clear to the north that if a war starts up again, it will not be able to rely on air superiority this time around. We can signal, for example, that if the north bombs villages and IDP camps, the West will shoot down its fighter aircraft. There’s no way that the US is going to send ground troops to Sudan, but we could take out chunks of the north’s air force relatively easily — and the fear of losing its fighters would be a restraining force for the north.

John Prendergast, of the Enough Project, puts it this way, and I think he’s right:

The stakes are too high to leave US policy towards Sudan on auto-pilot. If the North-South deal crumbles, Sudan will become the largest and deadliest conventional war on earth. President Obama should empower Secretary Clinton and Ambassador Rice to oversee the implementation of the policy they themselves announced a half year ago, one that has been undermined by subsequent diplomatic gaffes and promised benchmarks that appear to have been ignored. Eight months from the South’s independence referendum is late, but not too late, to send a signal that war-mongering will be met with serious consequences.

I’d welcome your thoughts about the likelihood of a new Sudanese war and what can be done to reduce the risk. Comments from Sudanese particularly appreciated.

It’s official: Sudan’s National Electoral Commission today declared a victory for President Omar al-Bashir in what’s been dubbed the country’s “first democratic elections” in over two decades. The outcome, of course, is no surprise, given that Bashir was running virtually unchallenged. (I find it strangely contradictory how so many reports about Bashir’s victory lead off by writing of Sudan’s “first multi-party election” in practically the same breath as they note that Bashir’s potential challengers boycotted, leaving the longtime dictator as the only plausible candidate.)

The electoral commission also announced today that incumbent president of southern Sudan, Salva Kiir, won reelection in a landslide, receiving nearly 93 percent of votes. The results confirm that President Kiir will lead the semi-autonomous South to its self-determination referendum in January 2011.

Enough’s Maggie Fick in the southern capital of Juba had this to report about the reaction she witnessed at the airport when the final results of the presidential election were televised:

Not to project my opinions onto the airport waiting lounge crowd too much, but people seemed pretty nonplussed by the news, as it came as no surprise that Bashir and Salva Kiir would respectively win big, but I think people were genuinely surprised and pleased at the fact that the SPLM’s (withdrawn) candidate Yasir Arman took 2 million votes. A Sudanese friend on the flight with me said this was “because of ignorance,” but another person (a lawyer from Khartoum) I met in the airport said it was a good sign for Sudan that Yasir garnered so many votes. Any way you look at it, the intense confusion surrounding the position(s) of the opposition parties immediately before the elections, and the SPLM’s late decision to withdraw its presidential candidate, left Sudanese voters with little choice but to vote for Bashir.

It’s hard to say whether the 2 million voters who chose Yasir did so out of protest (against Bashir) out of support (for the SPLM) or out of ignorance (they hadn’t heard Yasir had been withdrawn). But the fact that Bashir got ONLY 68 percent of the vote after a thoroughly rigged process might just say something about the future of Sudanese politics. Thanks to what Girifna and other popular pro-democracy groups started during this electoral process, there’s hope that the next elections could be more competitive and perhaps even some kind of vehicle for democratic change.

It has been 13 days since Sudan’s elections, and during this tenuous phase marked by isolated cases of violence and mounting reports of fraud, the Obama administration has been remarkably unresponsive. This month’s unfree and unfair elections were just one development that should have tipped off the administration to the need to rethink its policy toward Sudan – particularly in light of the administration’s pledge to evaluate its policy “based on verifiable changes in conditions on the ground.” Yet high level engagement from the administration is conspicuously missing.

In reaction, the Sudan Now coalition began running a series of ads in the Washington Post and the Washington Express today and in Politico on Wednesday that call on Secretary of State Clinton and U.N. ambassador Susan Rice to personally take the lead in overseeing the U.S. policy on Africa’s largest country. As initial reports emerged over the weekend of fighting along the North-South border that left 58 people dead – in an area bound to be a powder keg in the lead-up and aftermath of the southern referendum next year – it’s clear that leadership on Sudan from Secretary Clinton and Ambassador Rice could come none too soon.

Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has been declared the winner of this month’s landmark elections, despite facing war crimes charges over Darfur.

Former rebel leader Salva Kiir has been confirmed in power in the semi-autonomous south in the first polls since the north-south war ended.

The polls were Sudan’s first multi-party elections in 24 years.

Observers and opposition parties have complained of fraud and – particularly in the south – of intimidation. Sudan’s election commission said Mr Bashir had received 68% of the vote.

It also said Mr Kiir, leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), had received 93% of the southern vote.

The BBC’s James Copnall in Khartoum says President Bashir could present his re-election as a popular rebuke for the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant against him for alleged war crimes in Darfur. Sudan’s leader strongly denies the charges.

His two main challengers withdrew before the elections began, claiming that the process had already been rigged.
Our correspondent says these accusations and withdrawals have dented the credibility of the elections.
The SPLM joined a national coalition government after a 2005 peace deal but relations between the supposed partners remain tense.

A referendum is due in 2011 on whether the south, where most people are Christian or follow traditional religions, should secede from the Arab-dominated mostly-Muslim north. Mr Bashir has said he would respect the outcome of the referendum but some fear conflict could resume, especially in the oil-rich border region.

Speaking in a televised address after the poll result was announced, Mr Bashir said: “The referendum in south Sudan will take place on schedule.”

He described his election win as a victory for “all Sudanese”, and played down criticism of the poll, praising “the civilised and respectful conduct during these elections, which saw no clashes or friction”.

The EU and the Carter Center said the polls were below international standards.

But former US President Jimmy Carter said he believed the international community would recognise the winners all the same.
Mr Bashir and his National Congress Party were already well ahead in the results already announced from the 11-15 April elections.

As well as the national and southern presidential contests, elections were also held for the national, regional and state parliaments and state governors.

Tension in Sudan was raised over the weekend, with reports of clashes along the north-south border.

Some 55 people were said to have been killed in clashes between an Arab community and southern soldiers.
The weekend violence was the most serious since the polls. The clashes reportedly began over grazing rights for cattle – a common source of conflict in the area. But southern government officials say their soldiers were attacked by members of the northern army – charges denied in Khartoum.

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — Sudan’s opposition parties accused the United States of backing the country’s elections despite the deep flaws favoring the government, as officials announced Monday voting was extended for two days following complaints of problems at the polling stations.

Sudan’s first multiparty elections in almost a quarter century are part of a 2005 peace deal that ended 21 years of a bloody north-south civil war and are meant to bring a democratically elected government for the impoverished country and prepare for a referendum next year over the status of the south.

Political parties and observers, however, have criticized the elections before it even started saying the process is flawed and heavily controlled by the ruling party headed by President Omar al-Bashir, who is under indictment for war crimes stemming from the conflict in the western region of Darfur.

The U.S. is one of the main sponsors of the peace deal between the north and south and has been heavily involved with the two partners to ensure the elections and the subsequent referendum, which the south wants to use to gain independence, take place.

A group of opposition parties who boycotted the voting have accused the United States of backing al-Bashir’s flawed elections, in exchange for the central government allowing the referendum — and the south’s eventual secession — to happen.

Mariam Sadiq, a senior member of the Umma party, said there is a deal to separate the north from the south by ensuring that al-Bashir wins re-election.

Al-Bashir’s victory ”is meant to separate the south by electing an agreed upon political figure,” Sadiq said.

Farouq Abu Issa, a spokesman for the opposition groups, told a press conference in Khartoum that Washington is ‘’seeking to manage the elections in Sudan they way they managed them in Iraq.”

Speaking to reporters in Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said he would not comment on the elections until later in the week, but applauded them as part of the implementation of the peace agreement.

”Obviously, it’s going to be a difficult election for Sudan to carry out. They haven’t done this in a while. So we will not be surprised if there are irregularities. There’s some evidence that there have been some difficulties in the first two days of voting.”

”We thought it was appropriate to have this election, notwithstanding the likelihood there would be considerable difficulties,” he added.

Many northerners oppose the secession of the south and fear that al-Bashir will agree to it in order to reduce the international pressure on him stemming from his indictment by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Darfur — a vast western region where ethnic African tribes revolted in 2003 against the central government.

Sudanese election monitors, meanwhile, say that voting has not even begun in some parts of the country, particularly in the impoverished south.

There were reports that some voting stations had been moved without notice, voter registries or other crucial equipment was missing and observers were not allowed in to witness the process.

In an apparent response, the election commission said it is extending voting for two days to address reported problems delaying voter participation. Voting had been scheduled to go until Tuesday.

”The Commission has decided to extend the voting for two more days until Thursday. After reviewing some technical mistakes, the Commission has found reasons to extend the vote to allow all voters to practice their … rights,” said spokesman Salah Habib.

AlBaqir Alafif, head of one of the largest Sudanese networks monitoring the elections, said widespread irregularities have been reported since voting began, including delays in opening polling stations, faulty voters rosters and ballot papers.

He said an extension of the voting days will not remedy the faulty elections.

”This is not going to retrieve their credibility which has been lost,” Alafif said.

In addition to the president, the Sudanese are electing a national assembly, local governors and parliaments and the president of the semiautonomous government of South Sudan.

Despite the boycotts, more than 14,000 candidates from 73 different parties were competing. Many of Sudan’s 16 million registered voters, especially in the south, had never taken part in multiparty elections before.

In Darfur, anti-government rebels called for a boycott of the election because the western region is under a state of emergency and sporadic fighting continues.

On Monday, the U.N. African Union peacekeepers in Darfur reported four of its staff have been missing for over a day. The mission said the peacekeepers were not heard from since Sunday when they were returning to their residence from a base in southern Darfur.

ROUM ROL, SOUTH SUDAN

For those used to seeing the faces of slaves in Civil War-era tintypes — staring at the camera in posed, formal judgment — it is a shock to see the face of slavery in a shy, adolescent boy.

Majok Majok Dhal, 14 or 15 years old (many former slaves have no idea of their exact age), dimly remembers his capture in the village of Mareng at about age 5. “I ran a little and was taken. I was carried on horseback.” He recalls seeing other captives shot and killed after refusing to march north with the raiders into Sudan proper. His master, Atheib, was “not a good person.” He forced the boy to tend goats and live with them in a stable. Majok was beaten regularly with a bamboo stick, “if I was not quick and fast.” He recalls once being feverish and unable to work. The master “stabbed my leg with a knife. He said, ‘I will cut your throat.’ ” Majok shows me his poorly healed wound. He was forced to address Atheib as “father.”

Relating his experience, Majok shows no anger — until asked about the master’s children. “When they beat me up, I couldn’t raise my head. If I tried to fight back, the father would kill me.” He recounts their taunting. “They would say to me, ‘Why don’t you go to your own home and eat?’ ” Majok’s voice rises: “If he brought me all the way to take care of goats and cattle, why did he not employ his own children?”

I talk to Majok through an interpreter, under a large tamarind tree, in a setting as bleak as his story. The scenery tests every possible shade of brown: reddish brown, yellowish brown, greenish brown. It is a landscape of thatched, conical huts; circling scavenger birds; rutted mud roads; and wandering goats. A haze of fine red dust blurs the horizon.

Nearby, about 125 recently released slaves are being interviewed by Christian Solidarity International, an organization that has helped redeem and resettle tens of thousands of captives during the past 15 years. Though no more slaves are being taken by northern militias — the raids generally stopped with the American-sponsored peace treaty in 2005 — an estimated tens of thousands more are still held within a hundred miles of South Sudan’s northern border.

The background of each man, woman and child at the makeshift camp is recorded, reflecting a determination by CSI that none of these people, and none of the crimes they have experienced, be forgotten. A woman is missing teeth from being tied and thrown to the ground. Others reluctantly admit that their genitals were mutilated. One woman tells me she is often awakened by her nightmares.

Slavery is only the most extreme legacy of Sudan’s two decades of civil war. With patience, nearly every personal encounter reveals a story of struggle. A pastor tells me how his congregation met for 15 years under a tree so they could quickly move to avoid bombing raids. Cattle herds — the main source of stored wealth in South Sudan — were decimated. An estimated 40 percent of people in this region depend on food aid of some sort. There is almost no public health infrastructure. A Sudanese doctor tells me that about every two weeks he diagnoses a new case of leprosy — a condition almost unknown in the West. Women in rural areas play fertility roulette — a local aid official estimates that one in six will die from complications during childbirth.

Just months from South Sudan’s likely vote for independence, its humanitarian challenges seem overwhelming. International relief organizations provide many services, but the greater need is the building of local capacity — agricultural development, trained government administrators, a credible national teaching hospital. Direct international aid in the form of cash can encourage local corruption. But technical assistance to build specific capabilities might be the only way to avoid the destructive failure of a new nation. Still, as one U.S. State Department official recently vented to me, “We are doing about 10 percent of what we need to do.”

Without leaving the planet, it would be difficult to experience greater cultural distance than meeting a Sudanese goatherd released from slavery. But my main impression of Majok was his profound resemblance to my sons of similar age. It is a hopeful thing about humanity. In a timid smile, in a turn of the head, we see similarity, we see family. We should also see responsibility.

Enough experts analyze the agreements being negotiated by the major parties in southern Sudan’s upcoming independence referendum.

A series of deals in February 2010 over elements of Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, largely went under the radar of international media attention, but offer important insights into the current dynamics of deal making between the National Congress Party, or NCP, and the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement/Army, or SPLM/A, as Sudan approaches the vital question of southern independence.

Both the NCP and the SPLM continue to approach deal making as a largely elite process. While the parties have found some areas of consensus, and are making progress in resolving some key issues, there is a worrying thread of self-interestedness in these decisions that could have unfortunate long-term consequences for both North and South. Given the range and complexity of issues still on the table, a far better coordinated and organized international approach to facilitating these discussions is needed. The strategy (or lack thereof) behind the international community’s involvement in the North-South negotiations will have an enduring impact on security throughout the region. A better coordinated international effort is needed to ensure that North-South discussions over the most contentious issues related to the likely “divorce” of North and South Sudan next year occur sooner rather than later in order to reduce the chances that these talks will degenerate into a dangerous zero-sum game.

National elections scheduled for April 2010 (they may be rescheduled) are currently distracting both parties to the CPA—who are both negotiating very high stakes issues surrounding the referendum, but doing so at a time when they hope to use the polls as a means to consolidate their power. February’s negotiations demonstrated that the NCP and SPLM are willing to make accommodations, but the most difficult issues still lie ahead with time before next year’s referendum rapidly running out.

Introduction
The agreements concluded in February 2010 between the NCP and the SPLM garnered far less international diplomatic and media attention than the ongoing Darfur discussions in Doha, yet from the long view of history, they may have far more lasting implications. By examining how these were reached, we can also understand the myriad challenges still ahead and the motivations driving the key players.

The ways in which the political leadership in Khartoum and Juba opt to engage in further negotiations in the coming months over unresolved CPA issues and postreferendum arrangements—and their respective motivations for doing so—will ultimately determine whether the South’s self-determination referendum and its aftermath are peaceful or not. The strategy (or lack thereof) behind the international community’s involvement in the North-South negotiations will also have an enduring impact on the futures of what are likely to be two separate states and on broader security in the Horn of Africa.

What Was Decided
In a relatively rare meeting in mid-February of the Sudanese presidency—President of the Republic of Sudan Omar al-Bashir, First Vice President of Sudan and President of the Government of Southern Sudan Salva Kiir, and Second Vice President Ali Osman Taha—the contentious issue of the 2008 census and its impact on the April elections was resolved, and forward progress was made toward preparing for the southern self-determination referendum in January 2011.

Here’s the breakdown of the recent agreements:
- Forty additional seats will be provided in the National Assembly for the South following the election, along with four more seats for South Kordofan and two more for Abyei. Consensus between the parties regarding the mechanisms for appointing these seats has not yet been reached, but the processes for determining the additional seats for the South and for South Kordorfan, for example, will mostly likely differ, given that state legislative elections in South Kordofan have been postponed (see below).
- Elections will occur in South Kordofan state at the executive levels (presidential and national assembly), but the gubernatorial and state legislative elections will be delayed until another census is conducted in the state with the participation of the SPLM, who boycotted the 2008 census in South Kordofan.
The South Sudan Referendum Commission will be constituted and its members announced in a decree issued by the presidency “soon.” At the IGAD summit in Nairobi on March 8 and 9, the parties agreed to establish the referendum commission by May.
- The discussion of “post-referendum arrangements” will be agreed to as soon as possible, and the NCP will present the members of their negotiation team soon. The SPLM has already created a “referendum taskforce” to address these issues.
- On North-South border demarcation, the two parties will begin demarcating the agreed-upon sections of the 2,100 kilometer border. Five areas spanning substantial swathes of border territory across four southern states remain disputed, and these areas will be referred to the High Executive Political Committee lead by Vice President Riek Machar (of the South) and Vice President Ali Osman Taha (of the North.) The presidency ordered the North-South Technical Ad Hoc Committee to present its report on the disputed areas to the presidency in two months.

Last month’s agreements follow on the heels of a key agreement reached in December 2009 over a set of laws related to the two referenda: one for the South and one for the still-contested border region of Abyei. Protracted, and at times halting, negotiations between the Sudanese parties, facilitated by U.S. Special Envoy Major General Scott Gration over the course of several months, did not yield outcomes acceptable to both parties. When the NCP and SPLM met in bilateral discussions in Khartoum in early December, the parties managed to resolve their differences over several key pieces of legislation, but not without firmly establishing that a small cadre of high-level elites in both parties would be decisive in the ongoing discussions. While it is often commonplace for high-level negotiations to be handled by such small groups, the lack of broader social buy-in for these deals from the populations of both North and South Sudan may prove problematic if citizens feel these closed door deals do not reflect the popular will.

Both sides made compromises in order to end the deadlock, but—in particular for the SPLM—this came at the cost of upholding its purported commitment to the CPA’s cornerstone: democratic transformation. An insider at the December bilateral meetings indicated that the SPLM viewed itself as being caught between a rock and a hard place on the issue of the reform of the notorious National Security law, which will have a direct impact on the security climate in which the elections and referenda will occur. The SPLM wanted the security law changed, but wanted to pass the southern and Abyei referenda laws even more. The NCP, viewing the repressive security organs as a cornerstone of its hold on power, was unwilling to budge and calculated that the SPLM would place its desire for independence above reform. The failure of the SPLM to secure concessions on the security law also underscores its continuing struggle to make common cause with northern opposition groups in areas where their interests align.

What It Means
Diplomatically speaking, the recent flurry of deals is a positive step; the parties are making progress toward resolving issues that cannot be ignored if the peace agreement is to remain intact in the run-up to the national elections and the South’s referendum in 2011. But as a keen Sudan observer recently noted, “It’s late in the CPA, but early in the game.” In other words, the current environment remains incredibly fluid, and anything could happen before the expiration date on the CPA’s official “interim period” at the end of July 2011.

The central aim of the negotiations driven by Vice Presidents Riek Machar and Ali Osman Taha that occurred in the run-up to the presidential meeting in Khartoum was to resolve the heated dispute between the NCP and the SPLM over the 2008 census. The SPLM rejected the census results that put their share of Sudan’s population (39 million) at just 21 percent, maintaining that southerners make up one-third of Sudan’s overall population. Per the CPA, the census was intended to determine the percentages of representation in the National Assembly for each region, thus apportioning the number of legislative seats the North and the South would receive during elections. The SPLM publicly stated their concern that the census results would give the North an effective supermajority, allowing the NCP to push through constitutional changes while effectively removing the SPLM’s veto power. Such a supermajority could alter legislation related to the southern referendum relatively easily.

While the SPLM was driven by a desire to maintain a significant bloc in the parliament, the NCP for its part has been eager to see the national elections move forward and avoid a census dispute derailing that ballot. This stems from the fact that the NCP sees the national election as an important moment to try and make President Bashir appear more legitimate and help fend of pressure from the war crimes and crimes against humanity charges pending against him with the International Criminal Court.

Ultimately, it made sense for the NCP to cede to the South’s concerns by awarding the additional parliamentary seats, in no small part because the National Assembly is unlikely to exist in its current construction following the southern referendum next year. This gave the NCP the opportunity to appear conciliatory without actually having to reduce their hold on power while in turn granting them a guarantee from the SPLM that they would not boycott the polls.

The decision to postpone all but the executive-level polls in South Kordofan was a boon for the SPLM, which could not accept the results of the census in that state given the allegations of rigging and procedural errors that delivered the population of a state in the heart of the Nuba mountains to the North (and, according to the SPLM, drastically undercut the population in SPLM-controlled areas of South Kordofan, such as the town of Kauda). At the same time, the NCP gained by appearing conciliatory on this issue while simultaneously reducing the likelihood of a messy political contest that would likely have required some equally messy tactics during the polls by Khartoum. The NCP has spent significant state resources on it campaign efforts amid a clear realization that the regime faces a series of restless existential threats to its hold on power: tensions in Darfur, an array of northern opposition groups, international opprobrium for war crimes, and southern secession. Not one of those forces in isolation would seem sufficient to dislodge the NCP from power, but taken collectively it is easy to understand why the NCP is investing heavily in elections even as it ensures they are not free and fair.

Given the calculations of the parties in these negotiations, it is clear that agreements were reached on the basis of pragmatism, demonstrating that on certain issues the NCP and SPLM can and are willing to accommodate each other in order to preserve their overall objectives.

However, despite the recent progress, optimism should remain quite measured. These agreements did not resolve numerous other big-ticket items that remain on the CPA agenda, notably the final decision on and demarcation of the North-South border and revenue sharing. Although the parties recommitted themselves to “immediately commence the negotiations on postreferendum arrangements” at the IGAD summit in Kenya, the reality in Sudan is that the lion’s share of these discussions will not occur until the eleventh hour, when both the NCP and the SPLM are under pressure to make a deal. Perhaps most importantly, it is still unclear whether the NCP as a party is fundamentally willing to accept southern independence, or if the party will again resort to strong-armed tactics to avoid that reality.

It is urgently in the interest of the international community to ensure that discussions on the issues most likely to trigger a return to North-South war are addressed sooner rather than later. Without a coordinated international effort aimed at ensuring the timeliness of negotiations, one or both of the parties could use a delay in discussions to their advantage in the next year. For example, Khartoum could illicitly stoke unrest in the South during and after the elections to make the case that the southern Sudan is fundamentally ungovernable; some parties, the GoSS in Juba in particular, claim that Khartoum’s tried-and-true tactic of “war by proxy” was behind the continuing sharp uptick in violence in the South. Alternately, the SPLM could drag its heels on discussion of citizenship arrangements following the referendum for fear of causing the residency requirements for the southern referendum to be unfavorably constricted. In any case, both parties face profound concerns related to the outcome of the referendum and final resolution of any issues surrounding it will not come easily, especially prior to the southern vote next year. The fact that the positions of the international community toward Sudan remain poorly coordinated and designed at this late hour could well spell trouble ahead.

An important takeaway from the recent presidential-level negotiations is that the precedent of narrowly conceived deals between the NCP and the SPLM will likely continue. The tragedy is that future agreements are unlikely to change the status quo for everyday Sudanese, whether he or she lives in northern Sudan or in a new state in the South. Democratic transformation of Sudan—the hope of the 2005 agreement that ended decades of war between the North and South—has indeed been lost, or rather stolen, from the people of Sudan, by their leaders. The various trials and tribulations of Sudan will generate considerable heat, and hopefully some light, in the days and months ahead. But the risk of widespread violence remains acute, and the international community oddly divided and distracted at a time when genuine crisis prevention is needed more than ever.

With Cuban pork roast on the menu, Salsa classes on a Thursday and animated Spanish competing with the Latin beat, De Havana club in the South Sudanese capital Juba feels as though it is on the wrong continent.

It is here that a group of former Sudanese exiles, known as the “Cuban-Jubans”, gather most nights to share a bottle of whisky and put the world to rights – in Spanish. Among them are doctors, pharmacists, accountants, engineers and economists.

All were educated in Cuba during Sudan’s 21-year civil war and are now regarded as the intellectual elite of the south – one of the world’s poorest and least developed regions. “In Juba we have more than 100 Cuban graduates from different fields, all part of the 600-plus students sent to Cuba for education,” says 38-year-old Dr Okony Simon Mori. He returned to work at Juba’s Teaching Hospital in 2007, two years after a peace deal ended the conflict in which some 1.5 million people died.

‘Pencils for Kalashnikovs’
He was just 13 when chosen by the newly launched southern rebel group, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), to go to Cuba.

“Our late hero [SPLM leader] Dr John Garang told us: ‘Now the elder people will take the AK-47 and you guys will take the pencil and the pencil will be your Kalashnikov,’” he recalls.

Dr Okony left his family in 1985 at one of the refugee camps in Ethiopia where thousands of Sudanese had fled the fighting between the army of the Muslim-dominated north and Arab militia on the one side and the SPLM on the other. He travelled to Cuba aboard a Russian ship and did not see his mother and father again for 18 years – and it was not until he graduated and moved to Canada a decade later that he had any direct contact with them.

“We stayed in a boarding school in a small island called Isla de la Juventud [Island of Youth]. There were 25,000 students from different countries – most of them from Africa and Latin America,” Dr Okony says. “I think Cuba is unique and is a very special place; they believe in what you are – not where you belong or which religion you practise or the colour of your skin.
“The only thing they care about is your well-being and your aptitude. Really, they treated us as their own children.”

Latin lilt
After graduating in the late 1990s and with the civil war still raging, Canada agreed to take about 200 of the students, who had no passports.

Despite their qualifications, most ended up doing menial work to send badly needed cash to their families now mainly based in Kenya. It was only after the peace deal was signed that the medical graduates sought retraining in order to return to Sudan.

With the help of the Canadian charity Samaritan’s Purse, they studied at the University of Calgary and then in Kenya before relocating to the south. They not only received training in English and tropical diseases, but also on how to cope with the culture shock of returning to Africa. “When we were coming back, people were saying: ‘Those guys are crazy.’ But being out for a long time does not stop me to go and adapt my culture,” says Dr Okony.

“I feel like I’m doing something for the people who couldn’t make it to go to educate themselves. They fought this war and some of them died, so I have to fill their shoes now to carry this heavy load.”

And despite his Latin lilt, he says he has not totally forgotten the local languages and is becoming more fluent.

Patience
Fellow Cuban-Juban Deng Aleer-Leek says he may not be grammatically correct, but his Dinka is understandable – though when he first spoke to his mother, she needed assurance it was really him. “She asked: ‘What’s your nickname?” and when I said it she said: ‘Yes, this is my son,’” he recalls.

He is an engineer who built De Havana for his Cuban-educated compatriots – a haven, he says, they need if they are to meet their own expectations and what is expected of them. He says they have been waiting for so long to fulfil their role of going home and leading the reconstruction efforts in South Sudan that the slow pace of change can be frustrating.

“We feel like we’re not doing our duty,” he says, before recognising that they have to be patient.

“The time will come. You can’t make one o’clock to be three o’clock.” Dr Okony is much more sanguine about the difficulties facing the south but says foreign investment is what the region really needs.

According to Juba Teaching Hospital’s medical director, the hospital only has 18 doctors but needs 60. He says it is hard to recruit staff when non-governmental organisations pay so much better. “I know they’re short of doctors, I know there’s a lack of medicine but we try to do our best because, as JF Kennedy said – do what you can for your country not what your country can do for you,” says Dr Okony.

In the last couple of years, the hospital has improved immeasurably – just as Juba has transformed from “a jungle to a city”, he says with clear pride. And like his fellow Cuban-Jubans, he says he hopes to one day to visit Cuba again. “I would like it, when I have time, to thank them not for me but what they did for the people of southern Sudan.”

Enough experts break down the possible outcomes of the upcoming referendum vote in Sudan.

All signs indicate that Sudan, Africa’s largest state, will very soon split in two—either peacefully or violently. In a self-determination referendum scheduled for January 2011, the people of southern Sudan are widely expected to vote for separation from their northern neighbors. Yet with the security situation in southern Sudan deteriorating, next month’s national election set to be deeply flawed, and several crucial elements of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, still unimplemented, the referendum and its outcome are by no means guaranteed. As a guarantor of the CPA, the United States must work multilaterally on several fronts to support the peaceful expression of the will of the people of southern Sudan and prevent a return to conflict.

The two parties to the CPA—the National Congress Party, or NCP, and the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army/Movement, or SPLA/M—have a laundry list of difficult tasks to accomplish before the 2011 referendum. Next month’s elections will occur against a backdrop of intense political jockeying for position and rising tensions between the two parties. And while the Sudanese government has agreed to allow some external monitoring of the election, few Sudanese expect a credible process under the repressive security environment that persists throughout the country, particularly in the North.
The NCP and the SPLM must reach agreement on both outstanding CPA provisions and on post-referendum arrangements to avoid a return to war. Moreover, the international community must work to halt the downward spiral of intercommunal violence in southern Sudan—a situation that threatens the referendum altogether.

Unfortunately, the sustained multilateral pressure and unity of international purpose that yielded the CPA has not accompanied its implementation. In the absence of coordinated efforts by the international community, the United States remains the de facto external lead player on Sudan. However, U.S. efforts to date have assumed a level of good faith in the parties—particularly the ruling NCP—that simply does not exist. The NCP and SPLM reached agreement on areas of mutual interest with very little external facilitation. But with only nine months left before the referendum, there are major issues of disagreement that require international mediation if a return to conflict is to be averted. It is in these areas that the United States is expected to lead international efforts to facilitate compromises and to coordinate the development of multilateral pressures and incentives necessary to leverage such compromises.

The Obama administration must work urgently to support the parties in defining a clear framework for two distinct sets of negotiations: the resolution of outstanding CPA provisions and the initial discussion of post-referendum arrangements. For talks to succeed, the United States must work multilaterally to put meaningful pressure on the NCP and SPLM to find common ground on the CPA and the contentious issues that will accompany an independent southern Sudan. This approach is consistent with the Sudan policy unveiled by the Obama administration in October 2009, but the policy has not yet been implemented.

A ticking time bomb
Last year, Enough warned that the international community was at risk of sleepwalking through national elections and the run-up to the referendum.[1] Today, more international actors are clearly concerned about the potential return to conflict between North and South. Despite this increased attention, however, the trend lines in Sudan remain decidedly negative. Violence is rife in the South and in Darfur, state-sponsored political repression remains the norm in the North, implementation of key CPA provisions is effectively stalled, and a number of potentially explosive post-referendum issues remain unresolved. The recent agreement between the government of Sudan and the Justice and Equality Movement, or JEM, in Darfur, which appears to be unraveling quickly, is a good example of the substantial risks carried by poorly executed negotiations at this juncture.

1. Southern Sudan: Spiraling insecurity threatens the referendum
More than 2,500 people were killed and 350,000 displaced last year in southern Sudan.[2] Much of this violence is undoubtedly linked to historic tensions between southern groups over cattle and other resources, coupled with growing discontent over the lack of “peace dividends” received by the majority rural population across the South.[3] However, there is likely another historic trend at play. Throughout its two decades in power, the National Congress Party regime in Khartoum has frequently armed local proxies to wage war on its behalf and sow instability in Sudan’s marginalized peripheral areas.

Today, some reports indicate that Khartoum has provided arms to militias to attack civilians.[4] With this demonstrated track record of proxy warfare and now mounting anecdotal evidence, the perception among Southern leadership and some local populations is that Khartoum is the hidden hand behind recent violence. This perception is one that the Obama administration, and the international community more broadly, must take very seriously while still holding the GoSS accountable for its own shortcomings in the security sector.

Accusations by GoSS officials have stoked tensions between Juba and Khartoum and exacerbated barely below the surface rifts between communities in southern Sudan. The NCP’s hand has been strengthened by widespread perceptions that the GoSS has been incapable of extending authority throughout a vast, largely remote, and often inaccessible territory. Khartoum’s response to the intertribal violence has also helped to fuel mistrust between the parties and fostered the notion in some certain diplomatic circles that Sudan and its neighbors would be “better off” if Sudan remained united, implying that the South is incapable of “governing itself.”[5]

If 2009 was bad, 2010 may well be worse. Last August, a senior U.N. official characterized the situation in southern Sudan as a “humanitarian perfect storm.”[6] Deadly clashes have already occurred this year in four of the South’s 10 states and the threat of Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, rebels persists, particularly near the South’s borders with Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic.

April’s elections could aggravate this already tense situation. A core element of the GoSS’s pre-elections security strategy is a military campaign to disarm civilians in areas with the greatest potential for election-related violence.[7] Despite efforts to improve upon past disarmament disasters, current campaigns in Central Equatoria, Jonglei, and Lakes state have directly led to violence and casualties among civilians and the army.[8] [9] The SPLA is charged by state-level security committees with carrying out disarmament, which the GoSS publicly described as “voluntary” and only coercive if civilians refuse to hand over their weapons to the SPLA.[10] However, according to a senior official with the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Sudan, or UNMIS, rank-and-file soldiers are not trained in conducting voluntary campaigns, often leading soldiers to revert to coercive tactics.[11]

Communities have armed themselves—or are still holding onto the weapons they held during the war—in large part because they fear attacks by neighboring communities. Disarmament alone will not assuage these fears. Unless the SPLA and the GoSS devise a strategy for guaranteeing the security of disarmed communities and put greater efforts into community-level reconciliation, many communities will continue to arm themselves.

Indeed, the problems that come with a heavily-armed civilian population cannot be addressed through disarmament alone and must instead be part of broader security sector reform efforts with significant buy-in and support from donors and the international community. As one UNMIS official told Enough, “It takes a generation to get security sector reform right.”[12] With this realization in mind, it would be wise for the international community—particularly the United States and other actors already in the lead on funding security sector reform programs—to do the hard thinking now on how best to support these efforts beginning immediately after the referendum and beyond.

Given the likelihood of insecurity surrounding both the elections and the referendum, the international community also needs to work with the GoSS to anticipate and respond appropriately to outbreaks of violence in the coming months. However, security sector reform is challenging even in an environment of peace and stability and with genuine political will. It may prove almost impossible over the next year as all sides position themselves for a potential return to war.

2. Northern Sudan: State-sponsored violence and intimidation
The repressive political climate in North Sudan is not conducive to even marginally credible elections. The majority of northern Sudanese do not live with basic freedoms such as the ability to participate freely in opposition politics, freedom of assembly, or access to a free media. In the recent protracted negotiations with the SPLM over a package of CPA-related laws, the NCP resolutely refused to reform the National Security Law that enables the government nearly unchecked powers to detain and intimidate its people. With little outcry from international diplomats, some of the truly transformative cornerstones of the CPA were simply abandoned.

The voter registration period in late 2009 was marked by Khartoum government’s use of its security forces to harass, abuse, and detain those attempting to challenge the ruling NCP.[13] In early December, Khartoum’s security forces used tear gas against peaceful opposition protestors organized by the SPLM’s northern sector in Khartoum; several senior SPLM leaders, including the SPLM’s presidential candidate Yassir Arman, were beaten and detained.

Despite a recent—and increasingly—fragile framework peace agreement between the government and the largest rebel group in Darfur, the crisis there is far from over. Nearly 3 million civilians have been driven from their homes and warehoused in sprawling camps for refugees and displaced persons. A government offensive has killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands in recent weeks. And while the Sudanese government controls major towns, other armed groups—government-aligned militia, government-backed Chadian rebels, and Darfur’s fractured rebellion—have loose control over large tracts of territory and harass and terrorize civilians and aid workers with impunity. There is also widespread evidence that elements of the LRA, have found safe harbor in areas of Darfur controlled by government forces.

3. CPA implementation: The great unraveling
The CPA offered the promise of democratic transformation, but a true change in the political dispensation that lies at the root of so much conflict in Sudan requires the NCP and the SPLM to embrace democratic principles. Sadly, the parties have generally not chosen to pursue this path. The recent deal reached between the parties on the number of national parliamentary seats allocated to the SPLM ended a long deadlock related to a dispute over the 2008 census results, but it is arguably an example of how the CPA has been treated—and in some cases, manipulated—by each side. While the NCP has often attempted to avoid implementing the spirit and letter of the CPA, the SPLM has sought short-term advantage and political gain or mere survival, sometimes pursuing strategies that come at a cost to its image and its already shaky democratic credentials.

Despite this trend, it is important to note that the details of the late-breaking deal on parliamentary representation (which will impact the elections) are still being worked out. The SPLM is showing promising signs of supporting a more equitable process to accurately represent the degree of support opposition parties’ hold in each of the 10 southern states. Should the SPLM follow through on its recent statements regarding parliamentary representation of opposition forces in the South, this would be a step in the right direction, although it does not change the North-South deal-making dynamic that often continues to block the more transformative elements of CPA implementation.

Among a long list of CPA provisions that remain unimplemented, several pose the threat of sparking a return to conflict and should be prioritized:

Demarcation of the North-South border: “To me, the border demarcation is more important than the elections,” a leading GoSS official remarked to Enough. [14] The North-South Technical Ad Hoc Border Committee has been unable to reach agreement in its final report to the Government of National Unity, or GoNU, presidency on the 2,100-kilometer North-South border due to “procedural and substantive disagreements” between the NCP and SPLM over five particular sections of the border.[15] However, following NCP-SPLM discussions in mid-February, the two parties agreed to immediately begin demarcating the agreed-upon sections of the border and requested that the committee submit a report to the presidency within two months detailing the five disputed sections of the border. UNMIS has been denied access to several contested areas along the border—notably the Heglig oil fields that (following the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s July 2009 Abyei ruling) lie outside of the Abyei region (the Sudanese Armed Forces interprets this new status to mean that the Heglig –Kharasana area is outside the ceasefire zone specified in the CPA).[16] If key border areas remain undemarcated, they will be obvious wellsprings for renewed violence.

Residency requirements for the Abyei referendum: The contested region of Abyei remains a major flashpoint where the parties will resort to conflict in order to demonstrate their commitment to their local constituencies—for the SPLM, the Ngok Dinka native to Abyei, and for the NCP, the Misseriya nomads, who seasonally migrate through the region.[17] In Abyei today, 20,000 residents remain displaced from the May 2008 fighting between SAF and SPLA forces. Demarcation of the Abyei boundaries has been plagued by security issues and SPLM claims of the NCP intimidating the joint border demarcation committee.

Constitution of the Southern Referendum Commission and other preparations: Although the government signed the Southern Referendum Law into law in early February, the Referendum Commission has not yet been formed. For that to happen, the National Assembly will need to be called back from its pre-elections recess in order to approve the members of the Referendum Commission nominated by the presidency. Given the precedent of extreme delays in the two other major CPA processes to date—the census and the elections—it is likely that the referendum preparations could be plagued by similar roadblocks. The referendum is a “redline” for the SPLM and the people of southern Sudan; any delay in the holding of the referendum could easily spark a return to North-South conflict.
Post-referendum issues

A recent Chatham House report described 12 distinct post-referendum issues that the parties will likely face after the January 2011 referendum.[18] Given the contentious nature of questions surrounding future relations between the North and South in the likely event of separation, some of these issues in particular should qualify as “must-discuss” topics prior to the referendum. These issues include the wealth-sharing aspects of post-referendum arrangements, which include division of and access to Sudan’s oil and water resources. Division of assets and liabilities (including Sudan’s sizeable foreign debt, much of it incurred during the North-South war) is another negotiation process that would benefit from initial discussion between the parties prior to the referendum, as is the issue of migratory rights for pastoralist populations along the North-South borders. While no single issue facing North and South is unresolvable, the sheer volume of issues on the table, the high stakes involved, and the rapid timetable for negotiations make for an explosive combination.

Calculations of the parties
Neither the NCP nor SPLM have an interest in returning to all-out war. Unfortunately, the main factor working against an outright return to North-South conflict is also the central reason why the CPA’s project of “democratic transformation” has failed: Both parties represent the ruling elites of North and South, and neither side wishes to give up their respectively precarious positions. An accommodation between elites in Khartoum and Juba could be in the offing, but both sides are understandably reluctant to accept potentially painful compromises on their overarching objectives: access to southern oil wealth for the NCP, and sustainable southern independence for the SPLM.

1. National Congress Party
At the fifth anniversary celebration of the CPA in January, President Bashir announced that his government would be the “first to recognize an independent southern Sudan.”[19] One interpretation of this statement is that the NCP would be willing to “let the South go” as long as its fundamental interests in the territory were upheld. The NCP’s interests are several fold: first, to maintain the party’s hold on power; second, to maintain significant control over oil resources in the South; and third, to emerge from international isolation without actually making meaningful concessions on either power sharing or accountability. If Khartoum and Juba can work out a mutually beneficial wealth-sharing arrangement—one that enables Khartoum to continue to reap the benefits of the South’s resources even after its independence—then war could be avoidable. In this scenario, the NCP would need to maneuver into an arrangement in which the SPLM has no choice but to concede some of its wealth to the North; should this move succeed, the NCP may view overt tampering with the referendum as unnecessary.

The NCP is well aware that construction of a pipeline to take southern oil reserves to a port other than Port Sudan is years—and billions of dollars—away. Therefore, the SPLM will have no choice but to engage in horse trading with the NCP over usage rights. This scenario illustrates the NCP’s cost-benefit calculations in its dealings with the SPLM on numerous post-referendum issues. If it can extract exactly what it wishes from its weaker southern partner, the NCP will most likely avoid war. However, the regime has been purchasing more and more sophisticated weaponry in preparation for the opposite scenario.

President Bashir has weathered the initial storm that followed the International Criminal Court arrest warrant in 2009—although the charges still represent an existential threat to his rule—and now appears guaranteed to win a flawed national election next month. In theory, the April elections will not re-legitimize Bashir despite the fact that he will almost certainly be elected in a multiparty contest for the first time since he took power by coup two decades ago. In practice, however, the elections will certainly give African and Arab nations who are already not wholly (or even mildly) opposed to Bashir’s leadership further reason to support Bashir as the legitimate, elected leader of Sudan.

The elections will also influence the way some Western nations view Bashir and his regime. The international community has invested significantly in the elections and their credibility—including $95 million in electoral assistance from the United States. Many donors view Sudanese elections less as a democratic exercise and more as a “trial run” for the referendum. Donors have been abundantly willing to overlook fraud and vote rigging simply to move on to what they consider the main event. Moreover, the NCP is well aware of the pressures and motivations of donors, as well as their long track record of recognizing the results of patently terrible elections. The once-lofty aspiration of a democratic Sudan as encapsulated in the CPA has been sullenly reduced to an expensive box-checking exercise.

Khartoum is better positioned to face the challenges present in the CPA’s waning interim period than the SPLM. From this position of strength, the NCP can confidently drive the agenda of the negotiations and resolutely refuse to compromise on anything—from reform of the National Security law to residency requirements for the Abyei and southern referenda—that will reduce its position.

2. Sudan People’s Liberation Movement
In his own speech at the recent CPA celebration, South Sudan President Salva Kiir made an important and telling point about the nature of the agreement that ended 23 years of war between Sudan’s North and South:
…[T]he CPA represents a landmark in Sudan’s political history since it put an end to war, created conditions and established ground rules for restructuring the Sudanese state politically, economically, administratively and culturally…[The]CPA is, essentially, a deal to find a middle ground between parties and it provides a spring board to realize our vision of New Sudan through democratic means. I equally believed that if CPA is realized fully in letter and spirit, it provides the last chance for Sudan’s unity. [Emphasis from original text.] [20]

That southern leaders have largely abandoned any hope for unity is left unsaid. Salva’s decision not to run for the national presidency is as clear an indication as any that the SPLM is focused on secession. The SPLM is now left to maintain its tenuous partnership with the NCP while challenging for national elections, addressing ongoing insecurity in the South, preparing for an independence vote, engaging in wide-ranging and complex negotiations, and continuing to struggle with the basics of administration and governance. This would be a tall order for even the strongest political unit. The SPLM, however, is undergoing a period of inner turmoil in the run-up to the elections. Not only is the SPLM aware of the popular discontent (particularly among minority southern tribes), with its leadership, but it is being forced to address challengers within the party.

The electoral process is putting a great deal of stress on the SPLM, evidenced by the political drama surrounding the party’s candidate nomination process and the subsequent proliferation of “independent candidates”—former SPLM members who opted to abandon the party after being rejected as SPLM candidates. If the SPLM chooses to use this contentious period as a learning experience—and makes efforts to re-engage with members of its wounded political leadership—the process could strengthen the party and better prepare it for the challenges ahead, particularly following the referendum.

Although there is no doubt that the SPLM’s top priority is ensuring a credible referendum takes place in January 2011, the party will be tied up in the electoral process through April. Many of the senior GoSS leaders—notably the Ministers of Regional Cooperation and SPLA Affairs—are running for parliamentary positions in their home constituencies. Other government officials are assisting the SPLM candidate for the national presidency, Yassir Arman, with his campaign. It is worrisome that the most competent SPLM politicians are currently not able to prepare the party for the crucial negotiations with the NCP that must occur between the elections and the referendum.

Because the SPLM has been so heavily focused on the independence option, it has become increasingly disinterested in pushing the NCP to make important reforms whether in terms of security laws or other basic freedoms in Sudan. This has been a considerable strategic mistake for the SPLM. By focusing only on southern parochial interests, the SPLM has largely lost its ability to find common cause with northern opposition groups. It was this more unified approach between northern opposition groups and the SPLM that was able to exert more decisive negotiating pressure on the NCP, and was able to garner important international support. Equally important, by looking increasingly unconcerned about such basic freedom in Sudan, the SPLM calls into question its own democratic credentials. Even while independence remains the final goal for the SPLM, this goal can be much more effectively advanced in concert with northern opposition groups rather than in isolation.
Once the elections are behind them, the calculations of the SPLM are clear: independence or war. While the preferred outcome for the SPLM would be a credible, peaceful referendum followed by an internationally recognized secession, a unilateral declaration of independence is not out of the question should the SPLM determine that the referendum has been partially or fully subverted by the NCP. The “red line” of the referendum for the SPLM means that any delays or major difficulties associated with the conduct of the referendum could provoke the Juba leadership to take steps toward another North-South war.

The SPLM is not yet able negotiate on equal terrain and with comparable acumen to the NCP. The party faces an uphill battle which will not end after the referendum or at the conclusion of the interim period. As the South’s ruling party continues to look northward and to prioritize the threats posed by its CPA partner, it risks ignoring mounting challenges within its territory that seem poised to heighten both in the run-up to and following the referendum.

The way forward: Forging a framework and building the leverage for talks
There is no common strategy among the CPA guarantors and little coordination between actors—such as the Obama administration and the African Union Peace and Security Council, among others—that should be uniformly supporting the parties in defining a clear framework for two distinct sets of negotiations: the resolution of outstanding CPA provisions and the initial discussion of post-referendum arrangements. Neither of these two processes can be initiated prior to the elections, but the international community should use the run-up to the April polls to help the parties set up the frameworks, build the leverage, and establish the security environment necessary for these processes to succeed.[21] Instead, there seems to be little in the way of a common position among key actors in the international community, and this lack of a well-coordinated and clear policy line toward Sudan will only make conflict prevention more difficult.

1. The framework
The United States must assist the Sudanese parties in defining a framework for both sets of negotiations and then supporting this framework through a coordinated, consistent, and well-resourced international effort.[22] The Obama administration should immediately begin harnessing qualified personnel resources for the special envoy’s team and prepare to deploy them to Khartoum and Juba in order to assist in the preparations for these critical negotiations. The barebones U.S. diplomatic presence in Sudan at present is a more telling indicator of the Obama administration’s attention to Sudan than its soaring rhetoric.

The United States must continue to be the de facto leader of international efforts on Sudan in 2010 and likely beyond. This does not mean, however, that the United States should go it alone. While focusing U.S. attention on several high-priority issues will enable progress, it must be complemented by coordination with other international actors who have a comparative advantage in advising the Sudanese parties on certain aspects of the preliminary post-referendum arrangements.

The United States should therefore coordinate its support with the other CPA guarantors, with the United Nations and African Union, and with other countries with significant interests in the future stability of Sudan, namely China, Egypt, and other Arab nations such as Qatar. The need to avoid a disjointed process is paramount, given the limited resources and capacities of the parties and the timeline for these negotiations. A logical place to begin building greater policy coherence on Sudan would be at a U.S.-European Union foreign ministerial-level summit on Sudan.

No matter what framework is adopted, the parties must lay the groundwork for 2011 to ease fears that the referendum vote will result in “zero-sum” outcomes. This year’s negotiations can establish ground rules and preliminary understanding between the two parties on the clear hot-button issues that could inflame tensions immediately following the referendum. By providing support now to the parties in discussing the likely post-referendum realities, the international community could take an important first step toward post-referendum support to southern Sudan and preserving peace after the important vote.

2. The leverage
As a top UNMIS official noted, the ability of the parties to reach and carry out the referendum peacefully will depend heavily on international pressure on Khartoum.[23] Moreover, and per the CPA, southern Sudan has an internationally recognized right to secede should its citizens vote for separation in the referendum. This right must be upheld by the CPA’s guarantors. It is imperative that the CPA’s guarantors and other international actors engaged in Sudan communicate to the NCP in no uncertain terms that there is no alternative to the referendum being held on time and in an environment in which the poll can be credible. Relative international diffidence in the face of repeated NCP provocations may also embolden the party to engage in dangerous adventurism as the referendum approaches, including the seizure of disputed territories.
Implementation of the administration’s benchmarks-based policy is the best way for the United States to demonstrate its commitment to preventing a return to war and promoting sustainable peace in Sudan. Consistent application of conditional pressures and incentives on the NCP and the SPLM based on the two parties’ behavior in the remainder of the CPA interim period will support these objectives. Given that the NCP has engaged in a renewed offensive in Darfur, given safe harbor to the LRA, and utterly failed to hold anyone accountable for war crimes or crimes against humanity, many observers are now rightly questioning whether the administration’s benchmarks approach will be rigorously applied.[24]

The United States should also call for the expansion of the mandate of the U.N. Panel of Experts in Sudan to investigate the ongoing violence in southern Sudan and reports of an influx of small arms and heavy munitions into the South. The Obama administration must continue to pressure the NCP to reform the abusive National Security Law, as credible referenda and elections cannot take place unless Khartoum’s National Security Service’s broad powers throughout the country are curbed.

3. Security
When the UNMIS mandate comes up for renewal at the U.N. Security Council in April, the United States must call forcefully for a strengthened civilian protection mandate, drawing upon the recommendations recently made by operational humanitarian agencies working in southern Sudan.[25] The new mandate should emphasize preventive action, such as predicting flashpoints, and utilize active strategies such as temporary operating bases and long-range patrols. UNMIS can and should take far more forward leaning steps to operationalize its existing civilian protection mandate, but this will require the allocation of more resources and explicit directives and guidelines from New York. The U.S Permanent Representative on the Security Council, Ambassador Susan Rice, is well poised to work with other member states to adjust the mandate, and she should receive the full backing of the Obama administration in her efforts.

Conclusion
Although preparation now for both sets of negotiations is essential, it is up to the Sudanese parties to push these processes forward after the elections. Based on the history of NCP-SPLM negotiations before and after the signing of the CPA in 2005, it is likely that agreement on outstanding CPA provisions and initial discussions on post-referendum arrangements will occur at the eleventh hour. The role of the international community is to reduce the likelihood that these discussions end up occurring in such a politically charged environment that consensus between the parties becomes impossible. Sudanese presidential adviser Ghazi Salah Al-Deen Al-Attabani recently said that failure by the Sudanese parties to address post-referendum issues such as North-South border demarcation before the referendum occurs will be a “recipe for war.”[26] It is clear that the parties are cognizant of the need to begin these discussions prior to the referendum. The international community should support these efforts or begin preparing for the next of Sudan’s catastrophic civil wars.

[1] See Gerard Prunier and Maggie Fick, “Sudan the Countdown” (Washington: Enough Project, 2009), available at www.enoughproject.org/files/publications/sudan_countdown.pdf.
[2] U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Humanitarian Update Southern Sudan,” February 17, 2010, available at http://ochaonline.un.org/Default.aspx?alias=ochaonline.un.org/sudan.
[3] See International Crisis Group, “Jonglei’s Tribal Conflicts: Countering Insecurity in South Sudan” (2009), available at http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6452.
[4] Human Security Baseline Assessment, “Supply and demand: Arms flows and holdings in Sudan,” Sudan Issue Brief. 15, December 2009, available at http://www.smallarmssurveysudan.org/pdfs/HSBA-SIB-15-arms-flows-and-holdings-in-Sudan.pdf.
[5] See Colin Thomas-Jensen, “Javier Solana’s Foot in Mouth Problem,” Enough Said, September 3, 2009, available at http://www.enoughproject.org/blogs/javier-solana%E2%80%99s-foot-mouth-problem.
[6] Lise Grande, UNMIS Deputy Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Southern Sudan, Opening remarks at African Press Organization press conference, August 12, 2009, available at http://appablog.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/press-conference-by-lise-grande-un-deputy-resident-and-humanitarian-coordinator-for-southern-sudan/
[7] Disarmament campaigns conducted throughout the South between 2006 to 2008 have been extensively analyzed and documented by the Small Arms Survey, most recently in a January 2009 paper by Adam O’Brien, “Shots in the Dark: The 2008 South Sudan Civilian Disarmament Campaign” Working Paper no. 16 (Small Arms Survey, 2009), available at www.smallarmssurvey.org/files/portal/spotlight/sudan/Sudan_pdf/SWP-16-South-Sudan-Civilian-Disarmament-Campaign.pdf; The GoSS Ministry of the Interior has directed the Southern Sudan Police Service, or SSPS, to take the lead on elections security; UNMIS police units are training SSPS and donor governments, notably the United States and the United Kingdom, are aiding in coordination and planning for police deployments throughout the South during the elections. According to the SPLA spokesperson, “The SPLA will release the forces needed to support the Police. The Police will then train them on the best ways to support and command them throughout the election period… the police senior officer[s] will be the ones to command the SPLA supporting forces during the elections.” Enough email correspondence with SPLA Spokesperson Major General Kuol Deim Kuol, January 28, 2010.
[8] Disarmament is currently underway in the States of Lakes, Jonglei, Central Equatoria, Warrap, Upper Nile, Unity, and Northern Bahr El Ghazal. According to a senior SPLA official, although the SPLA has been ordered to disarm the civilian population in all 10 states of southern Sudan no later than the end of June 2010, disarmament has not started in the States of Western Bahr El Ghazal, Western Equatoria ,and East Equatoria “because of the LRA atrocities in those States and [because] the tribes in neighboring countries of Kenya and Uganda are armed and raid the Sudanese communities.” The GoSS view is that “[disarmament in these three states] requires joint political decision by the GOSS and leaderships of those countries.”Enough email correspondence, senior SPLA official, January 28, 2010.
[9] U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Situation Analysis of Akot Insecurity: Rumbek East County, Lakes State, 5-6 January 2010,” On file with Enough.
[10] Ideally, the South Sudan Police Service, or SSPS, would take the lead on civilian disarmament. However, in southern Sudan, the low capacity and resources of the police necessitate the use of SPLA forces in civilian disarmament. This is yet another reason why “voluntary” disarmament has quickly turned coercive and violent in the various campaigns in the South since 2006. Given that there are an estimated 14,000 police officers, with some sources indicating that no more than 9000 are effective, it is not surprising that the SSPS is overwhelmed in its attempt to address both pre-elections security and civilian disarmament, in addition to routine policing functions. Enough email correspondence with Juba-based security consultant, January 2010.
[11] Interview with senior UNMIS official, Juba, December 2009.
[12] Interview with UNMIS official, Juba, December 2009.
[13] See Human Rights Watch, “Sudan: Abuses Undermining Impending Elections” (2010), available at http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/01/24/sudan-abuses-undermine-impending-elections
[14] Interview with GoSS official, Juba, January 2010
[15]Report of the Secretary General on the United Nations Mission in Sudan (January 2010), available at http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2010/31
[16] Interview with UNMIS official, Juba, January 2010.
[17] See Colin Thomas-Jensen and Maggie Fick, “Abyei: Sudan’s Next Test” (Washington: Enough Project, 2009), available at http://www.enoughproject.org/publications/abyei-sudans-next-test; See also Roger Winter and John Prendergast, “Abyei: Sudan’s ‘Kashmir’” (Washington: Enough Project, 2008), available at http://www.enoughproject.org/publications/abyei-sudan%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%9ckashmir%e2%80%9d.
[18] See Edward Thomas, “Decisions and Deadlines: A Critical Year for Sudan” (London: Chatham House, 2010).
[19] Reuters, “Sudan’s Bashir says would help an independent south,” January 19, 2010, available at http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60I2P320100119?feedType=RSS&feedName=everything&virtualBrandChannel=11563 (last accessed March 2, 2010).
[20] Speech of H.E. Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit, First Vice President of the Republic and President of GoSS, January 9, 2010. On file with Enough.
[21] As a recent USIP report noted, “There is little time to waste in defining the negotiation process and roles. With nationwide elections scheduled for April, there is a brief window for defining the process and roles before negotiations are likely to begin in earnest.” Jon Temin, “Negotiation Sudan’s Post-Referendum Arrangements,” USIP Peace Brief 6, January 22, 2010.
[22] The Government of Southern Sudan is in the process of standing up a taskforce to serve as the coordinating mechanism within GoSS charged with preparing for the referendum and its aftermath. The GoSS deserves credit for mobilizing resources and centralizing its approach to preparations for 2011 and beyond. The international community, particularly the Obama administration, should signal its support of this effort by immediately channeling technical assistance to the taskforce’s working groups, each of which will focus on different aspects of pre- and postreferendum planning.
[23] Interview with UNMIS official, Juba, January 2010.
[24] See “Lord’s Resistance Army Finds Safe Haven in Darfur,” Enough press release, March 10, 2010.
[25] Joint NGO Briefing Paper authored by Oxfam International, “Rescuing the Peace in Southern Sudan” (2010), available at http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/rescuing-peace-southern-sudan.pdf.
[26] Sudan Tribune, “Sudanese NCP official criticizes referendum law as ‘recipe for war,’” January 5, 2010, available at http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article33679 (Last accessed March 2, 2010).

At the first quarterly review of Sudan policy by the Deputies Committee you will likely sense two very different assessments of what is happening in Sudan today. This divergence of opinion has major implications for your policy recommendations and decisions. One version of Sudan’s current reality will highlight recent agreements on the referendum law, high rates of voter registration, and the lack of village burnings and cross border adventurism in Darfur as demonstrations of tangible progress in Sudan.

The reality on the ground in Sudan speaks in starkly different terms. The dangerous status quo in Darfur remains unchanged in some key aspects: millions of people are left in squalid camps, unable to return home because government-supported militias occupy their land and make travel very dangerous. Women face high levels of sexual violence in Darfur, aid is erratic, and progress in the Darfur peace process remains painfully limited.

More broadly, the April national election in Sudan – an election for which the Unites States has provided tens of millions of dollars in technical assistance – is in the process of being stolen by an indicted war criminal who will use the ballot to “legitimize” his rule. The conditions to make the national election free and fair simply do not exist, and will not exist, by April, and there may well be sharp questions as to why the United States heavily bankrolled an election so obviously flawed.

Most urgently and ominously, there are abundant indicators that Sudan is on a dangerous road back to full-scale North-South war as violence increases and key elements of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) have been left completely unimplemented. The international community’s position toward Sudan at this vital time reflects neither consensus nor coherence. Officials from both North and South speak of not wanting war, but are intensively preparing for it. Local clashes in South Sudan are escalating, against an historical backdrop of extensive support to southern Sudanese militias by the ruling party in Khartoum designed to undermine southern unity. The heavy lift of diplomacy needed to assure that Sudan’s referendum is peaceful and well managed simply remains largely undone, with no full-time, on-the-ground diplomatic teams from the U.S. engaging the regional actors on either the North-South issues or the Darfur process.

To prevent a full scale war from erupting in Sudan in the coming year, the Deputies should recommend to their superiors and President Obama a course of action marked by much deeper diplomatic engagement, backed by more assiduous efforts to build a multilateral coalition of counties willing to impose consequences on those undermining the path to peace in Sudan. On the occasion of this first quarterly policy review, we urge you to consider three main actions:

1) The Deputies should recommend that diplomatic efforts begin immediately in New York and in capitals to pull together a coalition of countries willing to pressure the parties multilaterally to take the steps necessary for peace. Those officials and parties undermining peace should face specific and clear consequences. At this juncture, that would also involve withdrawing further U.S. financial support for the April election, expanding and more effectively implementing the current arms embargo, identifying specific officials who are undermining peace and targeting them with aggressive asset freezes and travel bans, and denying the Khartoum regime any form of multilateral debt relief until peace agreements have been far more effectively implemented.

2) The Deputies should recommend that the U.S. immediately deploy a small team of diplomats to be based in Sudan and the surrounding region to work full-time on the peace processes for Darfur and the CPA. Trips by the envoy, no matter how frequent, are no substitute for on-the-ground, around-the-clock diplomacy. The team should include senior diplomats with real experience in peace processes and existing familiarity with Sudan.

3) The Deputies should recommend a ministerial level meeting among North American and European diplomats on Sudan at the earliest possible juncture. The lack of a common position on the multiplicity of profound issues facing Sudan over the coming year – including serious post-referendum issues – must be addressed.

We want to personally thank you for all of the work that you continue to do to advance U.S. national interests and the cause of peace in Sudan, and thank you for your consideration.

JUBA, Sudan (Reuters) – South Sudan’s president on Saturday urged southerners to vote for independence in a referendum if they wanted to be free, the closest he has come to calling publicly for the separation of the oil-producing region.

The south secured a vote on whether to break away from Sudan as part of a peace deal that ended more than two decades of war with the north. But until now, southern President Salva Kiir has stuck to the official line of building support for unity.

“When you reach your ballot boxes the choice is yours: you want to vote for unity so that you become a second class in your own country, that is your choice,” he told a congregation in a cathedral in the capital Juba during a service to launch a prayer campaign for elections in 2010 and a referendum in 2011.

“If you want to vote for independence so that you are a free person in your independent state, that will be your own choice and we will respect the choice of the people.”

The comments will add pressure to the already troubled relationship between Kiir’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the north’s dominant National Congress Party (NCP).

Both sides promised to build up a campaign to make the unity of Sudan attractive to voters when they signed the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that settled the civil war.

Most southerners, embittered by the long war and the lack of development in the south since it ended, are widely thought to support independence. But their leaders have so far not gone as far as openly saying they want to split.

The bulk of Sudan’s proven oil reserves are in the south, while refineries and Sudan’s only port are in the north.

No one from the NCP was immediately available to comment.

TENSIONS RISING

Political tensions are rising in Sudan ahead of the first multi-party election in more than 20 years, promised under the peace deal and are due to take place in April 2010.

Voter registration was due to start on Sunday.

The United Nations said it was preparing to make Sudan’s biggest delivery of election materials to help in the exercise.

“There may be some difficulties moving materials to very remote locations,” said one U.N. official.

Kiir spoke out as the U.S. envoy to Sudan Scott Gration flew into Juba at the start of two days of talks with the southern leadership.

Gration has been holding meetings with northern and southern leaders, urging them to resolve sticking points in the peace deal including the details of the referendum, the constituencies for the election and the position of the north/south border.

Sudanese officials said he was due to visit Khartoum on Monday and Tuesday.

U.S. President Barack Obama launched a new carrot-and-stick policy this month aimed at ending violence in Sudan’s Darfur region and the semi-autonomous south.

Two million people were killed and 4 million fled their homes between 1983 and 2005 as Sudan’s north and south battled over differences of ideology, ethnicity and religion. North Sudan is mostly Muslim while southerners are largely Christian and followers of traditional beliefs.

The Obama administration released a document last week outlining its strategy on Sudan, and in its midst was a sentiment that has become almost canonical in the first year of the administration: “We must engage with allies and with those with whom we disagree.” President Obama has pushed the “reset” button with any number of countries with whom we disagree, including Russia, Iran and Cuba. The question raised by the new Sudan policy is whether “engagement” can be a suitable paradigm in dealing with a regime accused of committing genocide.

The argument over engagement has a long pedigree, at least by the standards of a very young president. In 2007, Obama declared that he would meet without preconditions with the leaders of rogue states like Iran and North Korea, adding that it was “a disgrace” that the Bush administration had refused on principle to do so. In the face of withering accusations of naïveté — above all from his Democratic rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton — Mr. Obama reaffirmed that commitment, arguing that turning our back on adversaries had only hardened their resolve.

The administration’s special envoy on Sudan, Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, has thus been listening, and talking, to the government in Khartoum, whose president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court, accused of committing crimes against humanity in Darfur, where some 300,000 civilians have died in state-sponsored violence since 2003. The new policy seeks to bring the genocidal violence to an end; to implement the terms of a 2005 peace deal between the government and forces in the south, who fought a savage civil war for 20 years; and to ensure that Sudan does not become a haven for terrorists, as it was in the late 1990s. The policy offers to ease sanctions to help advance those goals, and threatens to impose “credible, meaningful disincentives” should the Sudanese government prove noncompliant.

There is no serious argument, from experts or from advocates, that the administration should not talk to Khartoum or that it should not offer a mix of incentives and threats. Even the most ardent activists no longer argue for a military intervention, as many of them did at the height of the violence in Darfur, five or six years ago. As John Norris, executive director of Enough, a group dedicated to ending genocide, says, “It is the conditions with which that engagement is undertaken that are really the sticking points.”

What does Mr. Bashir have to do to start emerging from international isolation? At what point does Mr. Obama further ratchet up the pressure? The practical meaning of the policy of engagement has been to change this balance — to accept the regime’s bona fides more than had been true before, to throttle back the language of accusation and threat.

Darfur advocates and other critics argue that General Gration has offered muted criticism of the Bashir regime, and has been willing “to give carrots for little confidence-building measures” rather than for real changes in policy, says Donald Steinberg, deputy president of the International Crisis Group. A long history of failed diplomacy shows that Mr. Bashir’s government will ignore any commitment that interferes with its goal of crushing opposition, in Darfur and elsewhere.

Officials involved with the Sudan policy say, however, that there are now a variety of reasons to believe that conscientious diplomacy will work: Mr. Bashir fears for his survival; he craves legitimacy; the Sudanese, like everyone else, want to interact with Mr. Obama; the international community is prepared to act as it was not before. Sudan experts do not generally share this optimism.

A curious compound of deep hopefulness and blunt pragmatism seems to suffuse the Obama administration. What underlines the belief in engagement is a faith that Mr. Obama can accomplish what other statesmen cannot. Still, the underlying calculus is hard-headed — “evidence-based,” as one official put it. And the evidence, in Sudan, is that the genocide in Darfur is no longer front and center. The 2.7 million Darfuris in camps for the displaced live wretched lives but are no longer being killed in large numbers, if only because the government’s campaign of terror has largely achieved its objectives.

Attention has now shifted back to the conflict between north and south, which claimed two million lives. The peace agreement between the two sides calls for a national election next year, and a referendum in 2011 in which the south can choose independence. There is every reason to fear that the war will resume if the government of Sudan, which does not want to lose oil fields in the south, obstructs the referendum. “And if Humpty Dumpty falls off the wall,” as General Gration says, “we’re all in trouble.”

The administration must ensure that the referendum occurs, and is honored. Officials explain that Mr. Bashir wants to assure his grip on the remaining half of the country through next year’s elections. Otherwise, says one policy maker, who insisted on anonymity in order to offer a candid assessment, “the north has few incentives to move forward on the referendum.” And what if the regime violates pledges to allow freedom of speech and assembly, and effectively disenfranchises Darfur’s displaced people, as activists fear? “We have to have the election we can have and be honest about that,” the official says.

General Gration and others say they will do everything they can to ensure fair conditions for the election, but they seem prepared to help deliver Mr. Bashir a political victory, and a chance for legitimacy in order to keep Humpty Dumpty intact. The calculation may prove wrong; but it is hard to argue, under the circumstances, that the choice itself is morally obtuse.

The word “engagement” refers to a means of action, but the concept itself has to do with ends. You offer engagement not because the interlocutor deserves it, but because doing so is the best way of producing the desired end. The alternative policy, of righteous accusation, has been tried in Sudan. In 2004, Secretary of State Colin Powell officially characterized the violence in Darfur as “genocide” — but then testified that “no new action is dictated by this determination.” And none was forthcoming. Here, perhaps, was moral truth; but to what end? Engagement is susceptible to criticism both for naïveté and for cynicism; but like any policy, it will be judged by the results.

For the past seven months, U.S. diplomacy toward Sudan has veered dangerously in the direction of appeasing Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP). Since taking power in a 1989 coup, the NCP has engaged in a systematic assault on the Sudanese people. The use of starvation as a weapon in Southern Sudan and the genocide in Darfur have killed nearly two and a half million people. Omar al-Bashir, the country’s president, is the first sitting head of state indicted by the International Criminal Court. Under his rule, the body count continues to climb.

Some of the Obama administration’s recent lowlights have included public and private rhetoric favoring incentives over pressure, talk of lifting longstanding sanctions without demanding anything in return, and a disconcerting lack of emphasis on the need to hold this heinous regime accountable for what this and the previous U.S. administration have declared genocide. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden talked tough when they were presidential candidates, but this administration’s day-to-day diplomacy on Sudan has been troubling.

This has emboldened the ruling NCP to harden its positions at the negotiating table, continue military operations in Darfur, crack down on independent voices throughout the country, stir trouble in the South, and shut down efforts by international entities to independently monitor key developments on the ground. Engagement by the Obama administration with Robert McFarlane and others lobbying on Sudan’s behalf only furthered the impression that Khartoum was on a fast track to normalization.

Finally, a ray of hope emerged on Monday. After months of delay due to internal disagreements, the administration unfurled its new Sudan policy. On paper, the new approach seems to have an appropriate balance of carrots and sticks that would only take effect, according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, based on “verifiable changes on the ground.”

Precisely what sticks the administration has in mind remains classified. But an acknowledgment of the need for genuine pressure is a welcome dose of reality—particularly after Maj. Gen. Gration said recently that “cookies and gold stars” are the best way to change the regime’s behavior.

As the administration moves forward with this new strategy, it must not ignore the substantial track record of evidence that sustained pressure leveraged by meaningful sticks is what has moved the NCP during the last 20 years of authoritarian rule. Only when there have been real consequences has the Sudanese regime altered its behavior, such as when it severed its ties with al Qaeda in the late 1990s, ended aerial bombing and support for slave-raiding militias in the South, and agreed to the North-South peace deal in 2005.

The administration’s new strategy contains additional subtle shifts that will be crucial to supporting justice, human rights and peace in Sudan.

First, for years U.S. policy has been murky with respect to a planned 2011 self-determination referendum for the South. A peace agreement brokered by the Bush administration allows for the possibility of an independent Southern Sudan. But since the deal was done, the U.S. has not given its full support to that possible outcome. The new policy appears to be more honest about the overwhelming likelihood that Southern Sudan will opt for independence. U.S. efforts should be designed to support a soft and peaceful landing for the new state that would be created in the aftermath of the referendum.

Second, the policy recognizes that counterterrorism cooperation should not trump other U.S. policy priorities. It would be a grave error if the administration allowed the NCP to evade culpability for carrying out a genocide simply by supporting U.S. antiterrorism initiatives.

Third, the new policy prioritizes accountability—though the nonclassified version is short on specifics—for the enormous crimes against humanity that have been committed. This marks a reversal from some of the administration’s previous public comments, which seemed to put justice on the back burner.

Crafting a sensible strategy on paper is a necessary but insufficient step. The real test is implementing these fine principles. To do so, U.S. officials must first recognize that the status quo in Darfur, Southern Sudan, and other vulnerable areas is unacceptable. The ongoing government offensive in Darfur, and the increasingly deadly attacks by militias in the South—including some by militias that were previously supported by the NCP—are fundamental obstacles to peace. If these trends continue, and the administration doesn’t lead international efforts to impose a steep cost to the regime in Khartoum, the trends will deepen and war will escalate.

The U.S. should immediately focus on building a coalition of countries that support this new plan and are willing to utilize multilateral incentives and pressures when needed. If the president and other cabinet officials fail to follow up on Monday’s announcement with the necessary action—bilateral meetings with key countries and aggressive diplomacy at the U.N. to rally support for this approach—Sudan will continue to burn.

WASHINGTON — Laying out the basic outlines of his Sudan policy, President Obama said Monday that he would renew “tough sanctions” against the Khartoum government and increase pressure if it failed to improve the dire situation in Darfur — but he also held out the possibility of incentives if Sudan cooperated.

“As the United States and our international partners meet our responsibility to act, the government of Sudan must meet its responsibilities to take concrete steps in a new direction,” Mr. Obama said in a statement released by the White House.

The strategy, worked out after months of intensive debate, is meant to build pressure on Sudan to end the abuses that have left millions of people dead or displaced in its vast Darfur region. It places a greater emphasis on incentives than the Bush administration policy, but officials were quick to stress that there were also additional punishments on the table.

The president of Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has been charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes by the International Criminal Court in the Hague for his role in human rights abuses in Darfur, and the new policy has come under criticism from some human rights advocates for its willingness to engage with his government.

A Sudanese presidential adviser, Ghazi Salahadin, said after the policy was announced that the new approach had some “positive points” and represented a “new Obama spirit,” but he expressed disappointment that the president had referred explicitly to genocide, Reuters reported from the capital, Khartoum.

Washington officials offered few details on Monday about the policy beyond its general aims. The United States, Mr. Obama’s statement said, would work to end gross human rights abuses, including genocide, in Darfur, seek implementation of the peace agreement that ended a war between northern and southern Sudan, and ensure that Sudan not serve as a haven for terrorists.

“If the government of Sudan acts to improve the situation on the ground and to advance peace, there will be incentives; if it does not, then there will be increased pressure imposed by the United States and the international community,” the statement said.

Speaking at a news conference at the State Department, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, retired, the president’s special envoy to Sudan, and Susan Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, did not provide details on what incentives might be offered to Sudan. Mrs. Clinton said that the administration had “a menu of incentives and disincentives, political and economic, that we will be looking to,” but added that it was in a classified addendum to the strategy document.

As a general sense of the new policy began emerging late last week, advocates of a tougher approach expressed concern that the administration — by offering incentives and playing down tougher sanctions — was taking too soft a line on Sudan.

Ms. Rice, however, emphasized that the new policy did not amount to a free pass, and that the government would pay a price for bad behavior. Along those lines, Mr. Obama said he would renew this week the current sanctions against Sudan, known as the declaration of a National Emergency with respect to Sudan.

“There will be no rewards for the status quo, no incentives without tangible and concrete progress,” Ms. Rice said. “There will be significant consequences for parties that backslide or simply stand still. All parties will be held to account.”

General Gration had irked some members of Congress by saying that he saw no reason to keep Sudan on the list of state sponsors of terror, and by arguing that some sanctions were unhelpful, comments that jolted those who believed Mr. Obama had promised a tougher line against the government.

There was no mention Monday of dropping Sudan from the terrorism list. Asked by a reporter whether he had “lost out” in the policy debate, General Gration said, “I fully support this strategy.” The general had said in his initial briefing at the State Department that Sudan was suffering the “remnants of genocide” — painting a more positive picture of the somewhat less violent situation now in the Darfur region than other administration officials have done.

But Mr. Obama, in his statement on Monday, used no such qualifier. “We must seek a definitive end to conflict, gross human rights abuses and genocide in Darfur,” he said.

In recent months, analysts both inside and outside the United States government have reported that ”low-intensity” skirmishes have replaced systematic slaughter by government-supported militants on one side and rebel groups on the other. However, systematic abuses continue to occur and millions of people are still displaced.

One human rights group, the Save Darfur Coalition, cautiously welcomed the administration’s statements, saying, “The policy is built around a balance of incentives and pressures similar to what Save Darfur and its partners have been calling for.”

But Jerry Fowler, president of the coalition, said that incentives should not be granted before there is “concrete and lasting progress” in Sudan, both in ending violence and abuses and in ensuring political openness. He said that the United States should build multilateral support for both incentives and pressures, and he called for “substantial personal involvement from President Obama.”

The Obama administration has almost completed its policy review on Sudan. There is, however, a major problem with the administration’s emerging policy: while an internal U.S. government agreement on tactical pressures and incentives has been reached, the broader diplomatic strategy through which these pressures and incentives will be enforced is fundamentally flawed.

It is increasingly evident that the ruling National Congress Party, or NCP, is eager to undermine the guarantee of a self-determination referendum as spelled out in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, which ended the devastating North-South civil war. Left unchecked, the NCP’s behavior will trigger a return to war in the South and make it all the more difficult to resolve the still simmering crisis in Darfur.

There is a developing pattern of evidence—in the context of a two-decade track record—that the NCP is arming ethnically based militias to destabilize the South, and the U.N. has noted the presence of increasingly modern and high-powered weaponry in recent clashes. An upsurge in violence by the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army, which the regime consistently used as a proxy during the earlier civil war, worsens an already grim picture for civilian populations and for stability in the South. Reluctance by the NCP to implement key provisions of the CPA has added to the general aura of instability and lies at the heart of many of the current problems. In Darfur, the peace process is dangerously adrift despite a lull in recent violence, millions of people still cannot return home, and it only remains a matter of time before the situation again erodes.

Against the backdrop of this gathering storm, and after a lengthy review of its policy toward Sudan, consensus has formed within the Obama administration around a basket of pressures and incentives that would be utilized in support of peace, including significant consequences for undermining peace and attacking civilian populations. The approach is generally in line with what the Sudan activist community has advocated since President Obama’s election.[i] There is, however, a major problem with the administration’s emerging Sudan policy: while an agreement on tactical pressures and incentives has been reached, the broader diplomatic strategy through which these pressures and incentives will be enforced is fundamentally flawed.

Regarding the South, the current U.S. diplomatic strategy is making peace more difficult by opening the door to a renegotiation of key aspects of the CPA’s implementation through the current tripartite talks. The U.S. diplomatic strategy should instead refocus on strict adherence to the CPA, particularly the provisions associated with preparations for the referendum for southern self-determination, and ensure that there will be consequences for any actions by the parties that undermine the CPA—either through non-implementation or by the arming of ethnic-based militias.

Regarding Darfur, the current U.S. approach is inadvertently leading to further divisions among rebel factions in Darfur and lacks an endgame focused on specific proposals that will result in a lasting peace. Instead, the U.S. must adopt a diplomatic strategy that puts the horse before the cart in Darfur by developing a draft peace plan that is backed by the diplomatic structure and leverage necessary for success.

Once the diplomatic strategy for both the CPA and Darfur has been corrected, the administration’s consensus around the tactical incentives and pressures in support of peace efforts in both Darfur and southern Sudan can provide helpful leverage for the success of the strategy.

This short policy report will attempt to explain how these damaging approaches in Darfur and the South are playing themselves out now on the ground, and what can be done now to limit the damage and enhance prospects for success. In the interests of full disclosure, we should note that we have maintained a robust dialogue with U.S. Special Envoy Scott Gration, provided technical support to some of his efforts, and plan to continue to do so as long as that assistance is welcomed and productive. But we feel it is urgent to point out the problems in his existing diplomatic strategy in both Darfur and the South, in the hopes that changes can be made at once, before more damage is done.

THE ENORMOUS HUMAN STAKES

The human stakes in Sudan have few parallels globally. The genocide in Darfur and the 20-year North-South war have collectively claimed over two and a half million lives. The worst could yet be coming. The real possibility exists today for a descent toward national war and fragmentation of the country as it moves toward a referendum on southern independence in 2011. With conflict prevailing in Darfur, violence rapidly increasing in the South, tensions in the North-South transitional zone known as the Three Areas escalating, and dissatisfaction in the East increasing, all the warning signs for a much broader conflict are now present.

It appears there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the dynamics of war in Sudan and the nature of the NCP within the broader diplomatic community, particularly among those who are relatively new to the portfolio. The reports of an end to the war in Darfur are premature, and the similarity between the upsurge in violence in the South now and the 2002 pre-genocidal violence in Darfur is striking. Why? The NCP has shifted its attention from Darfur to the South, not only because it cannot sustain a two-front offensive at the same time in both places, but because of the enormous implications of potential southern independence. When there is a lull in major offensive military action in Darfur, as we are seeing now, there is a predictable upsurge of violence in the South, thanks to NCP-sponsored militia attacks. The NCP continues to use ethnic divisions and violence as a primary instrument of their strategy to remain in power, and this will inevitably lead over time to renewed debate about further war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocidal intent.

In Darfur, nearly 3 million people remain in displaced or refugee camps, unable to go home because of government-supported violence and land occupations that target people on the basis of ethnic identity. These displaced and refugee populations face the constant threat of systematic rape by government-sponsored militias, as well as disruptions of lifesaving aid by NCP leaders and attacks on aid convoys by Darfuri rebel groups, including splinter rebel factions sponsored by the NCP, which themselves engage in banditry and reinforce anarchic conditions.

THE PROBLEM WITH AMERICA’S DIPLOMATIC STRATEGY

North-South: We believe the actual substance of the U.S. diplomatic strategy is fatally flawed and is failing to halt the accelerating slide back to North-South war.

Rather than working to create multilateral consequences for the NCP’s effort to obstruct full implementation of the painstakingly negotiated CPA, U.S. diplomatic engagement instead has inadvertently led the NCP to believe it can renegotiate specific elements of the CPA and avoid honoring agreements or sharing power. The NCP is demanding further negotiations on post-referendum arrangements as a prerequisite to implementing existing CPA provisions connected to the referendum, including the Referendum Act. The NCP is cleverly exploiting the U.S. willingness to enter into an open-ended dialogue through the tripartite talks. Throughout its two decades-long history as the ruling party in Sudan, the NCP (formerly the National Islamic Front) has signed agreements and deliberately slow-rolled and obstructed their implementation to maintain its hold on power. With a tight timetable on CPA implementation, renegotiation is an obvious delaying tactic that the U.S.—as the principal third party—cannot countenance.

A case in point is the census. An accurate and fairly conducted census is the foundation for holding meaningful elections, a cornerstone of the CPA. The census conducted by the NCP in the North was a travesty, and without a doubt intentionally so. Yet, the NCP has not suffered any consequences for that egregious act of bad faith. Rather, the results have been treated as a matter for negotiation. The NCP has ignored almost every measure within the CPA that would have allowed for greater individual rights or resulted in genuine democratic power-sharing.

With the Obama administration’s policy review nearing completion, the decision on when to generate and deploy multilateral pressures and incentives will be an essential determinant of success in Sudan. This is not an abstract question; it is an urgent imperative. The continued lack of consequences and failure to hold the opponents of peace to account has emboldened the NCP to continue its policy of divide-and-destroy through the provision of weapons to ethnic-based southern militias, the same approach it took with the Janjaweed in Darfur and the Murahaliin in the North-South war in the 1990s. As the NCP was negotiating with the U.S. in Juba recently, militia violence against civilians—including deliberate murder of women and children—was escalating dramatically, with little or comment on culpability by the United States. The NCP’s resumption of support for southern Sudanese proxy militias and its continued refusal to implement key provisions regarding the border and elections are a deliberate attempt to undermine southerners’ right to vote in a self-determination referendum in January 2011. Without strong, multilateral consequences to this behavior, a return to war in the South is certain, and the dissolution of Africa’s largest country will be steeped in bloodshed. This is not to excuse the Government of Southern Sudan for its shortcomings, particularly with regard to civilian protection, but the NCP’s current approach is clearly a recipe for war.

Darfur: Very few Sudanese, international officials, or activists believe the Darfur peace process, as presently constructed, will produce a viable peace agreement. Therefore, absent significant alterations, more work in support of the existing approach will only lead to further failure, and recognizing the inherent limitations of the current approach is vital to building an effective process.

The deficiencies and misdirection of the process include the following:
Lack of concrete peace proposals: The issues that matter to the people of Darfur are clear and include an internationally monitored plan to dismantle the Janjaweed and other militia structures, genuine power sharing at the local and national level, individual compensation for the victims of the genocide, and support for the reconstruction of destroyed communities and livelihoods. After nearly three years of endless discussion, the A.U./U.N. mediation has not put forward substantive proposals over which the parties can begin negotiations.

A rebel unification effort that could increase inter-communal violence: Successive mediators and other external actors have attempted unsuccessfully to forge unity within the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and other smaller rebel groups. The current U.S.-led effort is making the mistake inadvertently of anointing new leadership from the outside rather than supporting the conditions within which the rebels can self-select their leaders. This approach could unwittingly increase divisions amongst the Fur, the largest ethnic group in Darfur, and between the Fur and other marginalized communities. Negotiators can help Darfuri rebels and civil society reach agreement in their demands rather than trying to micromanage the organizational structure and leadership of rebel groups—which almost never ends well.

Misguided reliance on the 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement as a starting point for talks: Rebel groups and the people of Darfur rejected the DPA, and the agreement of only one rebel group worsened divisions within the rebels and led directly to increased violence in Darfur. Some elements within the DPA could be recycled in a new peace deal, but simply amending the DPA or attaching an annex will lead to an early stalemate in negotiations.

Lack of coordinated high-level support: The high-level diplomatic support of the “troika”—the United States, the U.K., and Norway—was the key element of success in the process that produced the CPA. No equivalent body exists for the existing Darfur peace process to provide leverage and direct diplomatic support.

No leverage in the form of multilateral carrots and sticks: The troika backed the mediator in the CPA talks with focused leverage to nudge the parties toward a deal. The multilateral carrots and sticks necessary for peace in Darfur have not yet been constructed.

No structured participation of civil society groups: Lack of civil society participation in the process that failed to achieve a settlement in 2006 was a major structural deficiency. There is no mechanism yet for civil society to participate meaningfully in the existing Darfur peace process. An effort to organize civil society participation by Mo Ibrahim was blocked by the NCP, with no consequence.

The imposition of a deadline for a Darfur agreement based on the electoral timeline: The current U.S. strategy seeks to secure a peace agreement quickly in order to allow Darfuris to participate in national elections next April. This may seem like a logical approach given the role that Darfuris should play in electing their leaders, but it simply won’t work as advertised for several main reasons. First, the rush to reach a peace deal on a deadline will almost inevitably lead to a flawed agreement. This was the case at the talks that resulted in the DPA; the Sudanese government made few concessions and the international community resorted to bullying tactics to press rebel groups to sign. Second, the compressed timetable for elections preparation, failure to conduct a census in Darfur, continued violence and intimidation by militia, and NCP dominance of the media and other state organs virtually ensure that an election in Darfur will not be seen as credible by many residents and thus could be a catalyst for further violence. It is almost impossible to imagine a free and fair election taking place in Darfur in April of next year, and the international community needs to have the courage to acknowledge this fact. Third, the electoral process could perversely consolidate ethnic cleansing in Darfur. Many Darfuris—particularly those who have been driven from their homes and their land—feel directly threatened by the voter registration process. Under Sudanese land laws, registering as a resident of a camp for displaced persons could cause the victims of the genocide to lose the legal rights to their abandoned property.

U.S. POLICY CHANGES NEEDED URGENTLY

We believe the following alterations should be made in U.S. policy. These shifts require urgent intervention by key Cabinet officials with long histories of speaking out on Sudan, including Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice.

North-South: President Obama must be unequivocal in publicly supporting the strict implementation of the CPA, and strong condemnation of NCP support for ethnic-based southern militias aiming to undermine stability in the South in advance of the referendum. The president should state clearly his support for the referendum as the cornerstone of the CPA, and thus of maintaining the peace. President Obama should direct Special Envoy Gration, Secretary Clinton, and Ambassador Rice to forge an international coalition that constructs a set of genuine consequences for the NCP’s obstruction of the CPA and its use of proxy ethnic militias and the Lord’s Resistance Army in the South. The same consequences should apply to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement if it undermines the peace process in any way. These consequences must include tougher economic sanctions targeted at senior regime officials and affiliated businesses, increased diplomatic isolation, an expanded arms embargo, and increased support for the work of the International Criminal Court in Sudan.

Twenty years of empirical evidence regarding the NCP suggests this course will be the most effective. A diverse set of meaningful pressures combined with deeper engagement led directly to the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the end of government-sponsored slave raiding by the Murahaliin and aerial bombing by the regime’s air force in the South during the 1990s, and the diminishment of the regime’s once prominent role in supporting international terrorist organizations.

Darfur: The United States must urgently lead in the formation of a group of concerned nations that can offer sustained, high-level support and leverage to peace talks that would be revitalized by the rapid development of a draft peace plan that addresses the core issues of the conflict. Direct U.S. backing of and involvement in these negotiations will be a prerequisite for their success. From day one of this revitalized peace process, the United States must ensure the meaningful involvement of Darfuri civil society groups and displaced camp residents in all negotiations.

In previous reports, we have spelled out in detail the substance of such a draft peace proposal, given that it is widely known and understood what Darfuri residents of the displaced and refugee camps believe constitute a just settlement of the conflict. The appropriate structure to support such a proposal is urgently needed, perhaps mirroring the successful model constructed for the negotiations leading to the CPA. Equally urgent is the diplomatic work that must be done in New York at the U.N. and in key capitals putting together a coalition of countries willing to utilize robust pressures and incentives in support of the process in a nimble, principled fashion. When necessary, the U.S. must be prepared to act alone or with a smaller sub-set of countries willing to work more urgently for peace in Darfur. If such a proposal, structure, and leverage existed that inspired the confidence of the people of Darfur, reluctant rebels such as Abdelwahid Nur would either join the process out of concern of being left behind or be rendered irrelevant by the hope engendered by the prospect of a real solution.

Given the range and complexity of the issues involved, additional staff should be assigned to the Sudan portfolio on both Darfur and the CPA, particularly field-based staff. Additional staff should be seasoned diplomats with relevant experience.

THE GENOCIDE LEGACY

This debate isn’t just about U.S. policy toward Sudan. President Obama’s handling of this crisis—one which he characterizes as genocide with respect to Darfur—is being watched around the globe, including the darkest corners where people without conscience may be planning the next genocide or mass atrocity. As South Sudan slides back toward war, and the stakes grow higher still, the world waits for President Obama’s response.

[i] Since President Obama was elected in November 2008, Enough, the Genocide Intervention Network, and the Save Darfur Coalition have jointly authored and released a series of open letters to the Obama administration outlining the Sudan activist community’s policy recommendations. See “President Obama and Sudan: A Blueprint for Peace” (April 2009), “President Obama’s Immediate Sudan Challenge” (January 2009), and “Letter to President-Elect Barack Obama: A Peace Surge for Sudan” (November 2008) to read the activist community’s recommendations to the Obama administration on how to end the crisis in Sudan.

NAIROBI, Kenya — The Sudanese journalist who was convicted of violating her country’s decency laws for wearing a pair of green slacks in public was released from jail on Tuesday, though she is not exactly sure why.

Lubna Hussein, the journalist, was jailed on Monday after refusing to pay a fine. Under Islamic law, she had faced up to 40 lashings, which instantly turned her case into something of an international sensation. Mrs. Hussein said that she did not pay the fine — approximately $200 — though a Sudanese journalist organization may have.

Sudan is partly ruled by Islamic law, and Article 152 of the country’s penal code states that anyone “who commits an indecent act which violates public morality or wears indecent clothing” can be fined and lashed up to 40 times.

Mrs. Hussein has vowed to appeal the conviction, and on Tuesday she said: “I will keep wearing the trousers. I won’t be affected by the court. This is my normal life.”

Manal Awad Khogali, one of her lawyers, said the judge hearing the case in Khartoum, the capital, had called only police witnesses to testify and refused to allow Mrs. Hussein — who had pledged to use her trial to bring attention to women’s rights in Sudan — to defend herself.

“He didn’t give us a chance,” Mrs. Manal said.

Mrs. Hussein, a 34-year-old widow, walked into the courtroom for her hearing on Monday wearing the same pair of loose-fitting green slacks that she had been arrested in.

After the trial was over, she seemed defiant as ever. “I will not pay a penny,” she told The Associated Press.

The judge had threatened to jail her for one month if she did not pay the fine. But according to The A.P., Mrs. Hussein said flatly: “I would spend a month in jail. It is a chance to explore the conditions in jail.”

On Monday night, after refusing her lawyers’ advice to pay, Mrs. Hussein was whisked off to prison, though her lawyers said that in the coming days a committee formed for her defense might pay the fine and free her.

But another organization seems to have beat them to it. Mohieddin Titawi, chairman of the journalists’ union, said his group had paid the fine because it had a responsibility to “protect journalists when they are in prison,” Reuters reported. His organization is seen by many journalists as having links to the government, the news agency said.

Has Darfur’s war ended? Has the genocidal counter-insurgency launched by the Khartoum regime in 2003 against Darfuri rebels and the non-Arab civilian population of Darfur been halted? Two departing leaders of the current UN/African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) claim that the war is indeed over, and has devolved into a “low-intensity” security problem. General Martin Agwai, the Nigerian force commander, declared on stepping down that, “as of today, I would not say there is a war going on in Darfur,” but rather “very low intensity” engagements. “What you have is security issues more now. Banditry, localised issues….” Rodolphe Adada of Congo, the incompetent joint UN/African Union representative to UNAMID, declared with breathtaking arrogance, “I have achieved results” in Darfur. “There is no more fighting proper on the ground.” “Right now there is no high-intensity conflict in Darfur…. Call it what you will but this is what is happening in Darfur—a lot of banditry, carjacking, attacks on houses.”

How accurately do these self-serving assessments comport with the daily realities that confront Darfuris and the international aid workers who struggle to provide food, clean water, shelter, and primary medical care for some 4.7 million conflict-affected civilians? Over the past 20 months—all on UNAMID’s watch—some 450,000 civilians have been newly displaced in Darfur, a large majority by violence; camps for displaced persons are now home to almost 3 million people. “Low-intensity”? A UN map of areas that have little or no humanitarian access shows virtually all of Darfur as significantly insecure (search “darfur humanitarian access map”+july+2009 at http://www.unsudanig.org/). As a consequence, most humanitarian operations and international humanitarian workers have retreated to urban areas, where there are still shockingly violent attacks, official harassment, carjackings, and banditry. There has also been an alarming increasing in the kidnapping of aid workers. Much of this violence is clearly condoned by Khartoum in a ruthless war of attrition against humanitarian operations. Unsurprisingly, it has become harder and harder to attract experienced aid workers to Darfur, an essential task following Khartoum’s March expulsion of thirteen key international aid organizations.

Darfuris wishing to return to their homes and villages to resume agriculturally productive lives cannot: Khartoum’s brutal Arab militia allies, the Janjaweed, continue their predations, often within sight of the camps. Women and girls are raped, men and boys beaten or killed. At the same time, many villages and lands have been occupied by marauding Arab groups, some from as far away as Chad, Niger, and Mali.

Adada and Agwai make much of a decline in violent mortality; but this decline was inevitable for two reasons. First, the actual military conflict in Darfur has drifted into a tactical and strategic stalemate, one that inevitably favors Khartoum—especially if the international community seizes on characterizations such as those offered by Agwai and Adada. Of the rebel movements, only the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) has the military resources and disposition to go on the offensive; but even JEM can no longer hold towns or villages it seizes and seems incapable of delivering a truly sustained and punishing blow to Khartoum’s regular military or various paramilitary proxies. Military coordination between the rebel factions is non-existent. Even so, the stalemate might still be broken for a number of reasons, and UNAMID at present would be powerless to halt a new escalation of violence.

Second, given the high levels of previous destruction, there is relatively little that remains in the way of promising new targets of opportunity among the villages and lands of non-Arab or African populations of Darfur, which made up at least two-thirds of the pre-war population. If we assume that the total pre-war population of Darfur was between six and seven million, then approximately 70 – 85 percent of the African population is either displaced or dead. My own survey of informed Darfuris in the diaspora revealed a clear consensus that 80 – 90 percent of African villages have been destroyed. And Google Earth has recently released new data showing more than 3,000 villages in Darfur destroyed or damaged during the period of greatest violence (see http://www.ushmm.org/maps/projects/…). These highly detailed photographs of course do not indicate villages that were simply abandoned for fear of impending attacks.

Let us be clear: “low-intensity” does nothing to describe or convey the terrible destruction that the AU and the international community allowed to rage when violence could have been halted by prompt and robust humanitarian intervention. Nor does “low-intensity” describe the present soul-destroying nature of existence within the camps: the relentless privations, the pervasive threats to health, the loss of hope, the acute sense of abandonment, and the anger and despair that relentlessly haunt daily existence. Victims of genocidal violence continue to be victimized, continue to face conditions of life calculated in many ways to bring about their physical destruction.

As to the scale of current violence in Darfur, it must be said first that UNAMID simply isn’t in a position to assess comprehensively the number of violent deaths or deaths that result from civilians fleeing violence. And limited access to much of Darfur is only part of the problem. In February, for example, approximately 100,000 civilians in the Muhajeria area of South Darfur were forced to flee following large-scale fighting between JEM and Khartoum’s forces, as well as subsequent bombing and ground attacks on neighboring towns and villages by Khartoum. We know that many made it to camps to the west and northwest, but a great many fled east and are unaccounted for. The very elderly and very young would have struggled to make it to camps, as would those injured during the fighting; a number of these people would have died. Conditions were appalling on the outskirts of Zamzam camp, to which some 35,000 people fled, overwhelming available resources and creating an immediate health emergency, with inevitable additional morbidity and mortality.

Nonetheless, UNAMID promulgated a figure of 102 violent deaths for all of February, throughout all of Darfur: this represented the number of bodies actually counted and assigned “violence” as the cause of death. But so much is excluded by means of this astringent methodology that it becomes meaningless as a figure for global mortality, particularly when to date perhaps 80 percent of those dying in the Darfur conflict are victims of the after-effects of violence rather than directly perpetrated violent acts. Violence is no less the cause of death, but this hasn’t prevented UNAMID officials from using their own highly circumscribed figures as evidence of the mission’s “success.” The same was true for the large-scale, scorched-earth campaign mounted by Khartoum north of el-Geneina in February 2008 (early in UNAMID’s official tenure): again, many of those killed or displaced were never accounted for.

UNAMID is neither responsible for the diminishment in the levels of violence in Darfur nor capable of halting major conflict should it resume. UNAMID offers some important security to civilians and humanitarians, in some locations, but given the mandate of the force and the size of nominally committed resources, it should be capable of much more, particularly in monitoring and bolstering security in more remote locations. Instead, General Agwai gave us an all-too-accurate account of UNAMID’s ability to monitor developments on the ground when he recently acknowledged that the force was like “very small ink spots on blotting paper. [We currently have] 32 spots, but we’re beginning to expand and spread.” We’ve been hearing a version of this claim since the UN Security Council authorized UNAMID over two years ago (UN Security Council Resolution 1769, July 31, 2007). But as recently as this past April, Special Representative Adada was obliged to concede in his briefing of the Council that UNAMID “was operating at roughly one third of its full capability.”

Moreover, UNAMID is in no position to continue with even its current protection efforts if it must at the same time effectively monitor a cease-fire, were one to be negotiated between Khartoum and the rebels. Yet virtually all observers acknowledge that a well-defined, robustly enforced cease-fire is the critical first step for successful peace negotiations. Adada and Agwai, with considerable (and justifiable) concern for how history will judge them, have done little to explain how UNAMID will meet the challenges of successfully monitoring such a cease-fire. Instead, they are framing the issues in Darfur in a way that deliberately obscures the massive security crisis that only deepens with time, and the extreme challenges of monitoring a cease-fire agreement that would have as one of its signatories a regime that has a history defined by reneging on such agreements.

Large-scale conflict may or may not resume in Darfur; but to focus only on the scale of military confrontation misses the broader issue. If insecurity —from whatever source(s) — collapses present international humanitarian operations, there will be hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, and it will not matter whether or not they are described as “low intensity.”

The Obama administration is in the midst of a contentious review of its Sudan policy, which was the subject of three hearings on July 29 and 30 on Capitol Hill. The outcome of the debate will help determine the future of millions of people from Sudan and the surrounding region.

At the July 29 Africa Subcommittee hearing, members heard a bipartisan critique of the current direction of U.S. policy towards Sudan. Rich Williamson, Roger Winter and I all have negotiated extensively with the regime in Sudan, have roughly a combined six decades in working on or in Sudan, and have a very clear idea of what is required for lasting peace to have a chance in that embattled country.
This hearing comes at a moment in Sudan’s history fraught with danger and potential. There is no effective peace process for Darfur, but one could be built with U.S. leadership. The CPA is on the brink, but could be salvaged if U.S. engagement deepens. Next year’s elections are at risk, but could become an important opportunity to strengthen opposition parties and democratic structures crucial for the referendum and for Sudan’s political future. The referendum itself is doubtful, but its prospects could be enhanced with a credible international roadmap.

The major unknown variable that will help determine whether the dangers or the opportunities get maximized is the unresolved internal debate over the direction of U.S. policy towards Sudan. In the absence of any agreement on the policy, U.S. diplomatic engagement has been energetic, for which Special Envoy Scott Gration should be credited.

But the substance of this robust engagement has been fraught with missteps, lack of internal coordination, and an overall aversion to pressuring the ruling National Congress Party (NCP). Sustained pressure leveraged by meaningful and focused sticks is the principal tool that has moved the NCP to change its behavior during the twenty years of its authoritarian rule. This substantial track record of empirical evidence of the value of pressure makes the direction of U.S. diplomacy all the more questionable.

In fact, Special Envoy Gration has stated that “right now we are looking at carrots and looking proactively.” That is the wrong message to be sending the NCP. They will eat those carrots and continue with the deadly status quo in Darfur and the South.

There is also a broader inconsistency in U.S. foreign policy when it comes to Sudan. The Obama administration has resolutely worked to craft more formidable international coalitions to isolate North Korea and Iran for important U.S. policy objectives. However, the U.S. is not doing the same for Sudan, despite the existence of a regime there that is responsible directly or indirectly for the loss of two and a half million lives in the South and Darfur.

A Better Way Forward for U.S. Policy

In the context of its policy review, President Obama should spell out a clear path forward for U.S. policy, consistent with the positions that he has taken previously as a senator and presidential candidate, and also consistent with positions taken in their previous incarnations by Vice President Biden, Secretary Clinton, and Ambassador Rice.

1. U.S. leadership in constructing a more effective Darfur peace process, using as a model the process that led to the CPA involving a lead role for the U.S. and a multilateral support structure that provided international leverage, expertise, and support;

2. U.S. leadership in supporting the implementation of the CPA, continuing the trend of deeper engagement over the last few months but structuring clear penalties for non-implementation of any of the key provisions;

3. U.S. leadership in supporting the democratic transformation of Sudan by supporting the electoral process, providing institutional support to opposition parties and civil society organizations, and building the capacity of the Government of Southern Sudan;

4. U.S. leadership in preparations for the South’s referendum in 2011, which will be a make-or-break process for the future of both North and South.

5. U.S. leadership in support of accountability. The ICC indictment of President Bashir is a crucial opportunity to address the cycle of impunity that has fueled some of the worst war crimes in the world. Sweeping violent history under the rug ensures its continuation.

The essential word that repeats throughout all these goals is “leadership.” U.S. leadership – multilaterally and when necessary unilaterally – will be an enormously influential ingredient in a successful transition to peace and democracy in Sudan.

But success will require greater leverage than that which presently exists. The debate internally within the U.S. government in part rests on the degree to which incentives or pressures ought to be favored instruments for changing the behavior of the Sudanese regime, the Darfur rebels, and the GOSS. It is the view of this panel and the activist organizations that comprise the Darfur movement that the way forward should involve deeper diplomatic engagement that is rooted in multilateral pressures and the credible threat of significant consequences for policies or actions by Sudanese parties that undermine peace efforts and lead to worsening humanitarian conditions.

In the absence of these pressures, and if incentives are all that are put forward, then failure is guaranteed. For example, the U.S. appears more interested in negotiating the implementation of the provisions of the CPA that have already been painfully negotiated, rather than marshalling the international coalition necessary to pressure the parties to implement what they have already agreed.

Success will also require the construction of credible and effective processes that allow for the achievement of U.S. policy goals. First and foremost, the glaring lack of an effective peace process for Darfur calls out for greater U.S. leadership in constructing from the existing elements a revitalized process that has the chance of ending Darfur’s war. Secondly, the U.S. should intensify its early efforts to revive the CPA and back these efforts with the construction of clear multilateral consequences for violations or non-implementation of key elements of the deal.

The bottom line is that there must be consequences for committing atrocities and for undermining peace. An incentives only strategy will guarantee failure.

We are confident that [the Abyei Arbitration Tribunal’s] decision will be grounded on the facts and the law, and will result in the settlement of the dispute that currently divides the parties.

–Ambassador Dirdeiry Mohammed Ahmed, Government of Sudan, closing remarks to the Abyei Arbitration Tribunal, The Hague, April 23, 2009

The SPLM/A wants to affirm to this Tribunal its commitment to implement your decision and hopes that the [Government of Sudan] will also honor its commitment to implement your final award.

–Riek Machar, Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and Vice President of the Government of Southern Sudan, closing remarks to the Abyei Arbitration Tribunal, The Hague, April 23, 2009

The countdown has begun in Sudan. This week’s legal decision on the boundaries of Abyei—an oil-rich, contested region along the disputed North-South border within Sudan—is the first major test of recent commitments made in Washington by the two parties to Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA. Although senior representatives of the ruling National Congress Party, or NCP, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM, have committed themselves to accept the ruling, how each side responds is a crucial litmus test of each side’s will to implement the CPA, and, by extension, a barometer for the efficacy of the Obama administration’s engagement on Sudan.[1]

Abyei is the ancestral land of the Ngok Dinka and also hosts the grazing and seasonal migrations of the Misseriya and other nomadic whose livelihoods depend on the area’s rich resources. The 2005 CPA created the Abyei Boundary Commission, which issued a “final and binding” ruling on Abyei’s boundary in July of that year. The NCP rejected the ruling, and a three-year stalemate ensued. The dispute erupted into violence in May 2008, when Sudanese armed forces razed Abyei town and forcibly displaced an estimated 60,000 people—the majority of the town’s population.[2] As is too often the case in Sudan, international diplomats rushed to broker a solution after the damage was done. Following weeks of negotiations, representatives of the NCP and SPLM agreed to refer the boundary dispute to international arbitration (See the Annex for a detailed explanation of this process).The arbitrators’ decision should ultimately determine the final boundary. It is also a real chance for the people of Abyei to finally receive the “peace dividends” promised to them in the CPA in 2005, and to begin consolidating the fragile peace that has been put on hold by the battle over the CPA’s Abyei Protocol.

Last month, the United States hosted a major conference on the CPA that shone much needed attention on the agreement’s implementation. The State Department has also issued a strong statement calling on both sides to prepare for implementation of the Tribunal’s ruling. These are positive steps. However, this week’s ruling on Abyei will occur against a backdrop of increasingly hostile relations between the parties over a number of unimplemented CPA provisions, including stalled preparations for the general elections in April 2010 and the referendum on southern self-determination scheduled for 2011. Abyei is potentially an insurmountable roadblock: If the parties do notaccept the tribunal’s ruling, CPA implementation will be effectively stalled. The CPA’s “guarantors”—those states and organizations that witnessed the signing of the CPA and agreed to support its implementation—must not tolerate intransigence from either party. The NCP’s reckless rejection of the July 2005 ruling was the cause of the current impasse.

The potential that the ruling could provoke violence in Abyei is very real. The international community—in particular the United States, which played a critical role in negotiating the Abyei Protocol—has a responsibility to ensure that the ruling is respected and that the residents of Abyei and the affected surrounding areas are protected from violence. A concerted multilateral effort in the coming weeks and months that combines increased short-term security provisions with diplomacy and international aid to reach a durable political solution to the Abyei dispute is necessary to defuse one of Sudan’s most dangerous flashpoints and prevent a return to all out war. If the Abyei dispute relapses into stalemate and violence, the already fragile CPA will be pushed to the breaking point and peace and stability throughout Sudan, including Darfur, will be ever more elusive.

Local dynamics, national significance

The history of the Abyei region is complex, but an important theme is its tradition as a “bridge” at the crossroads of Northern and Southern Sudan as well as a critical grazing area to both Misseriya Arabs and Ngok Dinka. The Misseriya and Ngok coexisted in the Abyei area for centuries, with the Misseriya traversing through portions of the Ngok grazing areas during their seasonal migrations as well as a number of other groups, such as the Twich Dinka. The British colonial decision in 1905 to transfer the nine Ngok chiefdoms to Kordofan—allegedly to address slave raiding and place victim and perpetrators under the same provincial administration—has had extended and unintended consequences. The Misseriya and Ngok developed hardened “Northern” and “Southern” identities respectively during Sudan’s North-South civil wars, which in turn raised the stakes for the key questions today: What are Abyei’s boundaries? Who is a “resident”? And, ultimately, is the territory part of the North or the South?

This area—rich in grasslands, forests, swamps, and river systems—also sits atop significant oil reserves which both the Northern and Southern governments seek to control.[3] The ongoing Abyei border dispute will have significant repercussions for long-term wealth-sharing arrangements and the sustainable livelihood of all groups that have traditionally come to depend on its lands and resources. Resolution of the key questions at stake in the Abyei debate will likely continue to plague the Sudanese parties in the remaining months of the CPA interim period, but acceptance of the tribunal’s ruling is a crucial step in getting these discussions on track in order to secure a peaceful and credible 2011 referendum and a stable transition thereafter no matter the outcome.

As Enough noted in a 2008 strategy paper on Abyei, the history of the region in the context of the two North-South civil wars also highlights the Sudanese government’s consistent pattern—across several past regimes—not only of signing agreements with Southern adversaries and then failing to implement them but also of trying to manufacture crises on issues which earlier had been “resolved” at the negotiating table.[4] One example is a referendum promised to the population of Abyei in the 1972 Addis Ababa agreement that ended the first North-South war. Abyei residents were to have voted in a referendum whether to remain in the North or be integrated into the territory of Southern Sudan; this referendum never occurred. The CPA has now guaranteed the residents of Abyei the right to vote in a similar referendum in 2011 at the same time Southern Sudanese will go to the polls to vote in their own referendum. A vote to join southern Sudan in 2011 potentially places Abyei within the borders of an independent South.[5]

Abyei is an issue fraught with intense emotion for the NCP and the SPLM. Ultimate control over coveted oil reserves certainly plays a critical role in this dispute. However, the issue is also linked to the NCP’s repeated promises to Misseriya groups and distinct party constituencies that it would deliver Abyei to the North and secure the permanent inclusion of its lands and resources within a united Arab Sudan. Likewise, many senior SPLM cadres are Ngok Dinka from the region. The Ngok Dinka fought along with the SPLA for their right to see their lands and people rejoined with the South. It is a mistake to view Abyei as merely a fight over oil, as a purely Misseriya-Ngok Dinka conflict, or a project of interest only to Ngok Dinka in the SPLM or the Government of Southern Sudan leadership. The dispute over Abyei is also directly linked to the future of Sudan as a unified or separate state, to the possibility of a stable North-South border in 2011, and to the imperative of a central government in Sudan that does not exploit its peripheral populations. Most importantly, the people of Abyei and its surrounding areas deserve reconciliation and peace—they suffered greatly during Sudan’s civil war and have seen few of the promised “peace dividends.” It is in this context that Abyei’s future is tied so closely to the future of all of Sudan.

During recent discussions in Washington, D.C., the parties reaffirmed their commitment to implement the tribunal’s award and agreed to several key steps: to demarcate the boundaries as per the decision, to disseminate information about the award to local communities, to ensure that the United Nations peacekeeping force in Sudan, or UNMIS, is at full capacity to fulfill its mandate, and to take measures to enhance security, prevent violence, consolidate peace even through the creation of local conflict mitigation processes. But regardless of these recent commitments, the fundamental calculus of the NCP and the SPLM remains the same: Both sides seek to strengthen their positions prior to the 2011 self-determination referendum without forcing the premature collapse of the CPA.[6] The fear, therefore, is that the tribunal’s decision could spark a reaction by one or both of the parties, their proxies, or other spoilers acting with or without the parties’ consent. Any such spark—even if not intended to provoke a return to full-scale civil war—could nonetheless deepen mutual mistrust and increase the possibility of renewed conflict before 2011.

The warning signs are clear. Recent military confrontations between the Sudanese army and the southern army, or SPLA—including the heavy fighting in Malakal earlier this year—demonstrate clearly that both sides are on a hair trigger. Moreover, the NCP’s actions related to the Abyei Protocol, from its rejection of the ABC’s report in 2005 to its arguments before the tribunal in April 2009, suggest that if the tribunal’s ruling does not meet with its interests it could reject the ruling outright.[7] Sudan’s ruling party could also follow the example of the government in neighboring Ethiopia, which accepted a boundary commission’s “final and binding” ruling on its border with Eritrea but has since doggedly refused implementation. Accepting an agreement and then slow-rolling its implementation is a tried and true NCP tactic. The NCP may try to keep the issue of Abyei open to gain concessions from international negotiators on other fronts. If the international community does not keep the pressure on, building peace in Abyei could be paralyzed at precisely the time when all parties and the international community need to be focused on the CPA’s other key benchmarks—particularly elections, popular consultations in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, and the 2011 self-determination referendum.

Balancing priorities and objectives on Abyei: Enough’s recommendations

Abyei is Sudan’s next test. Recent efforts to reinvigorate CPA implementation will be wasted if the international community does not work assiduously to prevent violence in the wake of the tribunal’s announcement and to quickly reach a durable political settlement on Abyei and other outstanding issues. The CPA’s guarantors, including the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (the East African regional organization that helped negotiate the CPA) and the Assessment and Evaluation Commission (the body formally charged with overseeing CPA implementation), should coordinate their efforts closely. If all of the Sudanese and international parties view the Abyei ruling as a chance to break an enduring political impasse and move forward with resolve to consolidate peace and promote development in the area, then CPA implementation could progress with a much greater chance of success. Given the critical role that the United States played in negotiating the Abyei Protocol, the Obama administration must now play a leading role in enacting the following recommendations:

Bolster the United Nations in Abyei

Enough and Human Rights Watch both documented the robust failures of the Sudanese government of national unity—which has the legal responsibility to protect civilians—and UNMIS to protect civilians in the aftermath of the May 2008 violence.[8] However, in response to the severe intercommunal violence that has rocked the South in the past six months, UNMIS has stepped up its efforts to deploy high-level civilian personnel immediately to the site of clashes. UNMIS deserves credit for responding quickly in the aftermath of violence, but UNMIS should be anticipating violence in Abyei and taking preventive action. Deploying civilian monitors in the wake of violence is simply not enough. UNMIS can make a difference on the ground now in Abyei in several crucial ways:

* UNMIS should immediately increase support for the existing Abyei police and Joint Integrated Units, or JIUs—military units created by the CPA and comprised of both regular Sudanese army and the SPLA—in order to increase their mobility and overall capacity to keep the peace throughout Abyei. UNMIS should also deploy monitors to Sudanese army and SPLA compounds outside of Abyei to reduce the likelihood of minor provocations that could lead to larger outbreaks of violence between these forces.

* Recent reports indicate that some Sudanese army units that are not legitimately part of the JIUs are currently within the interim Abyei Roadmap boundaries, putting them in clear violation of the agreement. The international community should back UNMIS in urging the parties to recommit to the security provisions of the Abyei Roadmap which are explicit in authorizing only UNMIS forces, the Abyei JIU Battalion and the Abyei Police to be present within Abyei’s interim boundaries. UNMIS should call for the removal of any other forces—local militias, “oil police,” or other armed groups—by the Parties prior to the ruling.

* In anticipation of further instability in Abyei, UNMIS should deploy additional battalions to the region and establish a greater civilian presence on the ground not only through the elections in April 2010, but through the 2011 referenda. Abyei will continue to be a flashpoint, and UNMIS’ presence will be more effective if it establishes longer-term programs and mechanisms to mitigate future violence. UNMIS should consider setting up a demilitarized buffer zone in Abyei to separate the two militaries and mitigate future clashes.[9]

* Based on its role as a full-time on-the-ground presence in Sudan, UNMIS can signal to the rest of the international community that the tribunal’s ruling should be viewed not just as a flashpoint for war but as a potential chance for peace if the ruling is accepted by the parties and ifthe CPA’s guarantors opt to infuse significantly more programs, personnel, and resources to Abyei in the immediate aftermath of the award. Abyei could become a potential model for development, peace, and reconciliation that could spread along the other North-South border areas, but only if it receives sustained attention and resources from the Sudanese parties, UNMIS, and the rest of the international community.

Maintain high-level international presence in Abyei

General Scott Gration, the U.S. special envoy for Sudan, and Ashraf Qazi, the head of UNMIS, have announced their intent to travel to Abyei for the announcement of the ruling. These commitments are commendable, and all guarantors to the CPA, as well as other stakeholders, should follow their lead. High-level presence should be constant until real commitments and activities toward implementation of the Abyei Protocol are under way, and diplomats from key CPA guarantor nations should be detailed to the area to observe and report on the progress the parties have made on the border demarcation.

Encourage local understanding of the tribunal’s ruling

Misinformation and lack of information surrounding the release of the initial ABC report—particularly by the NCP within Misseriya communities—helped to fuel spoilers and secure support for the NCP’s decision not to implement the ABC’s findings in 2005. In the Abyei Arbitration Agreement, the parties agreed to several provisions to increase transparency. The international community must now work with the parties to establish and implement a strategic communications plan that ensures full dissemination and consistent public education about the tribunal’s decision. This includes both written materials, community meetings, and radio broadcasts in appropriate languages.

Establish a plan for border demarcation and follow it up

The international community should work with the parties to establish a clear strategy for demarcation of the border by the joint survey team, as called for the in the ABC report.[10] This should include securing clear commitments and contributions from the NCP and the SPLM and relevant stakeholders, setting fixed deadlines which permit the Sudanese people and international community to hold the parties accountable and monitor progress, and establishing clear penalties for obstruction of the process. The failure to establish clear international penalties for a failure to implement key CPA provisions has been a clear drag on the agreement.

The Assessment and Evaluation Commission, or AEC, should conduct a monitoring and fact-finding mission within weeks after the decision of the tribunal is issued in order to report on the progress that the parties are making on implementation and make recommendations for improvements. The AEC report should be delivered to the parties, to the joint survey team, to UNMIS, and to the CPA guarantors.

The Abyei Arbitration Tribunal’s decision could resolve the most contentious issue in Abyei: the definition of the region’s borders. However, its implementation is only the first step toward lasting peace. Security will be enhanced in Abyei if the parties commit to initiating development and reconstruction projects to benefit the residents of Abyei as well as all those who seasonally migrate through the Abyei Area and also if the parties deliver the overdue funding due to the Abyei Area Administration so it can provide basic services. (Regardless of the tribunal’s award, the historic grazing rights of the Misseriya and other nomads are protected by the Abyei Protocol and should not be affected by the tribunal’s decision). Additional agreements should include provisions to ensure security in areas of grazing and migration and, as appropriate, may include additional guarantees to clarify and protect the rights of migratory populations (such as certain citizenship rights in the event of secession). A concerted effort must be made to ensure legitimate representative leaders of the traditional peoples of the area participate in the development of these agreements so that they are not merely the product of political negotiations in the capitals.

Conclusion

The international community, with leadership from the United States, has begun a welcome renewed diplomatic push to secure renewed commitment from the SPLM and NCP on CPA implementation. Focusing on Abyei now is the first step in making these commitments real in the lives of ordinary Sudanese, and the upcoming ruling represents an opportunity to promote sustained peace and development in one of the most tense areas along the disputed border. However, Abyei will continue to be a flashpoint, and sustained attention, including negotiations between the parties on long-term wealth-sharing arrangements related to Abyei’s oil reserves, are the only way to mitigate the risk that Abyei will unravel the North-South peace.

Annex: The Abyei arbitration process explained[11]

Why was the Abyei Arbitration Tribunal established and what does it do?

During the negotiations over the CPA’s Abyei Protocol, which was signed in May 2004, the Government of Sudan and the SPLM agreed to the establishment of the Abyei Boundary Commission, or ABC. The ABC is a group of international experts, representatives of the local communities, and the local Abyei administration mandated by the CPA’s Abyei Protocol to “define and demarcate the area of the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms transferred to Kordofan in 1905” (a province which is now divided into two states, Northern Kordofan and Southern Kordofan).[12] The five international “impartial experts” on the ABC were selected by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and approved by the Sudanese parties.

The ABC delivered its report to the Sudanese Government of National Unity, or GoNU, presidency in July 2005, at the end of the CPA’s pre-interim period. The Abyei Protocol required that upon presentation of the ABC report, the GoNU would “take necessary action to put the special administrative status of Abyei Area into immediate effect.”Instead, President Bashir and his government in Khartoum categorically rejected the ABC’s findings, refused to publish their report or implement its decision, and reportedly said that the ABC experts should “dilute [their report in water] and drink it.”[13]

The official complaint of the Government of Sudan is that the ABC “exceeded its mandate.” The Sudanese government continued to reject the ABC report for more than two and a half years, and in doing so denied the area of governance, its share of oil revenue originating from the area, the safe and dignified return of the displaced, and the security and development that others around Sudan had begun to experience, albeit tentatively (and, of course, excluding Darfur). The lack of international attention to the implementation of the Abyei Protocol obstructed any resolution to the standstill, and virtually guaranteed the continued militarization of the area.

Finally, after the large-scale fighting between the Sudanese army and SPLA forces and destruction of Abyei town in May 2008, the NCP and the SPLM signed the Abyei Roadmap on June 8, which provided, among other things, for security arrangements in Abyei, the establishment of the special administration, the return of internally displaced persons, and a final and binding settlement of the dispute over the ABC experts’ report by an international arbitration tribunal. Following the signing of the roadmap, the NCP and the SPLM penned the Abyei Arbitration Agreement that established the Abyei Arbitration Tribunal.

The tribunal is comprised of five well-known and respected jurists who were chosen by the parties themselves. Each jurist signed declarations of independence and impartiality. It is a temporary, ad hoc decision-making body based on an agreement between the Sudanese government and the SPLM, and its rules, procedures, and mandates were entirely defined by these two parties. The tribunal is markedly different from permanent international tribunals and courts such as the International Criminal Court, or ICC, in scope, statute, and composition, and it would thus be difficult for the Government of Sudan to credibly criticize the Abyei Tribunal in the same manner in which it has attacked the ICC.

What is the Permanent Court of Arbitration and what is its mandate?

The Permanent Court of Arbitration, or PCA, is located in The Hague. It is not a “court” per se, but is the world’s oldest and best-known arbitral dispute settlement organization. Sudan has been a member of the PCA for over four decades. In accordance with the Abyei Arbitration Agreement, the Government of Sudan (in practice the NCP) and the SPLM agreed to have the PCA act as the “impartial registry” for the Abyei arbitration process and provide to administrative and technical support to the parties and the Abyei Arbitration Tribunal.

What is the mandate of the Abyei Arbitration Tribunal?

It is the tribunal and not the PCA that will issue a decision this week. That same decision will be copied to all witnesses to the CPA and to the chairman of the Assessment and Evaluation Commission, or AEC, and made publicly available on the same day.[14]

The core question that the PCA’s Abyei Tribunal will answer with its ruling is whether or not the ABC exceeded its mandate to define and demarcate the areas of the Nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms transferred to Kordofan in 1905.If the tribunal finds that there was no excess, the parties’ agreement requires them to the “full and immediate implementation of the ABC report.” If an excess is found, it will proceed to define and delimit the boundaries of the Abyei area based on the submission of the two parties during the arbitration process.

The parties designed the arbitration process and the tribunal’s mandate so that it will result in a decision that determines the final boundaries of the Abyei area. The process also explicitly affirms that the decision will not in any way affect the traditional grazing rights of the Misseriya and other nomads that are already protected and guaranteed by the Abyei Protocol. Regardless of the outcome, these rights are guaranteed. The decision will also not define who is a “resident” of Abyei for purposes of the voter eligibility in the Abyei Referendum of 2011—it will only settle what the boundaries of Abyei are on a map.

While the decision of the Abyei Tribunal is meant to be final and binding, so too were all of the provisions related to CPA’s Abyei Protocol, as well as the original findings of the Abyei Boundaries Commission itself. Without the parties and the international communities’ strongest commitment to guarantee that the arbitral award is implemented, the tribunal’s decision will mean no more than the unimplemented provisions of the protocol and ABC report.

Endnotes

[1] The parties to the Abyei Protocol and the arbitration decision are technically the SPLM/A and the Government of Sudan. However, as the Government of Sudan is now known as the “Government of National Unity,” or GoNU, and dominated by the NCP, Enough will refer to the parties in this paper as the SPLM and NCP.
[2] For more information on Abyei, see Enough’s three reports on Abyei: “Abyei: Sudan’s ‘Kashmir’” (January 2008), “Sounding the Alarm on Abyei” (April 2008), and “Abyei Aflame” (May 2008). Also see International Crisis Group, “Sudan: Breaking the Abyei Deadlock,” October 12, 2007. For more on the CPA’s Abyei Protocol, see also Douglas H. Johnson, “Why Abyei Matters: The Breaking Point of Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement?” African Affairs (, 2008);, and Douglas H. Johnson, “The Abyei Protocol demystified” Sudan Tribune, December 11, 2007. The text of the Abyei Protocol is found in “Chapter IV: The Resolution of the Abyei Conflict” of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
[3] During the abortive January 2003 session on the Three Areas, research was presented indicating that the Ngok Dinka had been part of Bahr el-Ghazal Province until transferred to Kordofan in 1905, and this date was incorporated into the later American draft protocol, specifically defining Abyei as “the area of the nine Ngok Dinka Chiefdoms transferred to Kordofan in 1905.” The exact definition of that area was left to a Boundaries Commission which was to “define and demarcate” the area following the signing of the CPA.The year 1905 therefore became a date of significance to both parties: to the SPLM because it validated their claim that Abyei was once part of the South, and to the NCP because they were convinced that the area so transferred was less than the area the SPLM was claiming.
[4] See Enough, ”Abyei: Sudan’s Kashmir.”
[5] To learn more about challenges to the referendum, see Gérard Prunier and Maggie Fick, “Sudan: the Countdown,” Enough Strategy Paper (June 2008).
[6] See Prunier and Fick, “Sudan: the Countdown” and Adam O’Brien, “Sudan’s Elections Paradox” Enough Strategy Paper (June 2008).
[7] In his response to the ABC report in 2005, Dirdeiry Mohammed Ahmed, the head of the NCP delegation on the Abyei Boundaries Commission (and also the head of the NCP delegation in the Abyei arbitration process), threatened to go back to war if the ABC did not accept the government’s position during the GoS presentation of its case in the first meeting of the ABC. During the April 2009 tribunal hearing in The Hague, SPLM counsel highlighted that when read to their logical conclusion, the NCP’s (technically the government’s) arguments before the tribunal as made during the hearing and in their written briefs basically assert that if the tribunal defined Abyei in the same way as the ABC defined it, the government would see the tribunal as exceeding its mandate as well. Thus, while the NCP has not explicitly said that they would reject the tribunal’s ruling, they have implied that they would not accept a ruling by the tribunal that affirms the ABC’s report. See Abyei Arbitration Hearing Transcripts available at the PCA website, day 1 (April 18) p. 167-68 and day 2 (April 19) p. 52-55.
[8] For more on the fallout from the Abyei violence in May 2008, see Roger Winter, “Abyei Aflame: An Update From the Field,” Enough Strategy Paper (May 2008), and the Human Rights Watch report “Abandoning Abyei: Destruction and Displacement” (July 2008).
[9] In the 2007 report “Sudan: Breaking the Abyei Deadlock,” the International Crisis Group called for UNMIS to work with the Sudanese parties to establish a demilitarized buffer zone in Abyei, but this recommendation has not been implemented. The report also noted that “while the focus should initially be on Abyei, a demilitarized zone could eventually be extended along the entire North-South border.”
[10] As per the ABC report, at a minimum the team can be comprised of “three professional surveyors: one nominated by the National Government of the Sudan, one nominated by the Government of the Southern Sudan, and one International surveyor nominated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the East African regional organization. The survey team [can] will be assisted by one representative each from the Ngok and Misseriya, and two representatives of the Presidency.” This body should also include a representative of the neighboring states (chosen by IGAD or a member of the AEC) to ensure and an individual to represent other neighboring states as well as an individual to represent the other groups who seasonally migrate through the area. Abyei Boundaries Commission Report, p. 22, paragraph 4. The full text of the ABC report, released in July 2005, is available on the Sudan Open Archive.
[11] More information on the Abyei arbitration process, including complete transcripts of the oral hearings and written submissions and press releases from both parties, is available on the PCA website.
[12] The Abyei Protocol, which details the mandate of the Abyei Boundaries Commission, is found in “Chapter IV: The Resolution of the Abyei Conflict” of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. See also Douglas H. Johnson, “Why Abyei Matters: The Breaking Point of Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement?” African Affairs (2008).
[13] President Bashir’s statement made at a ceremony commemorating the 18th anniversary of the Popular Defense Forces in Wad al-Madeni in northern Sudan. See “Sudan president orders paramilitary forces mobilization, rejects Abyei report,” Sudan Tribune, November 18, 2007.
[14] The ruling will be made immediately available on the PCA website, www.pca-cpa.org.

One of the most encouraging outcomes from the last few weeks of consultations and hearings in Darfur and Khartoum, conducted by the African Union Panel, has been to highlight the extent to which there is a consensus about the kind of peace process needed and the issues that need to be discussed and resolved. There was far greater agreement across the political spectrum than I had imagined. Two months ago I was pessimistic about the capacity of Sudanese and Darfurian political processes to resolve the issues in the time available before the CPA timetable overwhelms Darfur. Today I am much more hopeful that under energetic leadership, with an inclusive process, a settlement of the Darfur crisis can in fact be achieved in time.

One of the key issues is the national elections. This question arose in every single public hearing, whether in Darfur or Khartoum. In general, the NCP and its supporters were in favour of proceeding with elections, and the armed movements, IDPs and those sceptical of the government were opposed. But it was not that simple.

At the civil society hearing in Nyala, one of the AU Panel members, Alhaji Mohamed Kebir, interrogated the civil society representatives who had earlier noted that there was no consensus on the question of whether elections should proceed.

“There are two points of view,” replied the civil society speaker. “One is that elections can be held now, it’s a principle and we should participate in the planned elections. There is no ideal world so we should make do. The other opinion is that there should be no elections; elections should wait for sustainable peace in Darfur.”

The elections-before-peace group was a minority, but an influential one. They marshaled several arguments. One was that the majority of Darfurians had been counted in the elections, which showed that, after Khartoum, South Darfur State was now the most populous in Sudan. How could Darfur then be left out of the electoral process? A Nyala CSO representative said, “We think there is a political transformation taking place. South Darfur is the second state in Sudan. If we have free, transparent and genuine elections we will have won a great deal. As long as life goes on, it is practical to hold elections, especially in secure areas.”

The case for participation continued, making the point that failing to join the electoral process would abdicate Darfurian participation in key national events leading up to the referendum in the south: “In Darfur we are part of Sudan. So it is an obligation that we should participate in any decision on the future of Sudan. Without us there is no Sudan. We are part of the political process, we should be a full partner…”

Some of the Arab nomads were similarly adamant. In the past, nomads have been poorly represented in electoral politics, often remaining off the voting rolls due to lack of registration. The larger share of nomads counted in the recent census encouraged them. Hassan Abdel Aziz Hassan of the Arab Coordinating Council of North Darfur said simply, “It is possible to hold elections in Darfur.”

At the political parties’ consultation in Khartoum, a senior NCP official, Ahmed Ibrahim Omer, argued that 95% of Darfur was secure and elections could proceed. In the IDP camps, he said, organizing the voting would be purely a “technical” matter.

A final argument was that the democratic transformation should not wait on a peace process that has been effectively stalled for the last three years. The CPA is at least moving, they argued, why hold it hostage to a Darfur peace process that is going nowhere? On the side of the meetings, some southern Sudanese expressed this view, noting that previous elections in Sudan in the 1960s and in 1986 had gone ahead without full southern participation (in the 1960s, a second round was held for many southern constituencies which had missed the main vote). Prof. David de Chand of the SSDF noted that the partial elections in southern Sudan in 1986 “are not an encouraging precedent.” He was worried that the outcome of this had been that the elected government was fatally compromised, resulting in continued war.

Most Darfurians, political parties and civil society representatives took the line that peace was needed before elections. They argued that large areas of Darfur—many localities in North Darfur and IDP camps—had not been enumerated in the census and people would be left of the voters’ roll. A representative from Abu Shok camp bluntly said, “We won’t participate in elections while our places are occupied.” Ismail Hussein Fadil, speaking at the civil society hearing in Khartoum, said, “Elections will be a problem for the camps. How can the camps be constituencies? Will those who occupied the land form new constituencies? Having elections under these conditions will create an even more complicated problem.” In the SLA-held area of Ain Siro, the youth representative said, “The 2010 elections: we have nothing to do with them.” Commander Ali Haroun added, “We don’t know if we are part of Sudan. Some of us are IDPs, refugees. We cannot trust the census. First we need peace, then we will think about other things.” These views were repeated almost verbatim across the three states by IDPs and a large proportion of others.

The issue was not democracy per se, but its timing. Sadiq al Mahdi summed it up: “Elections are vital but not viable without peace.”

This poses a challenge to those tasked with recommending a holistic settlement for Darfur (such as the AU Panel) and the mediation team headed by Joint Chief Mediator Djibril Bassolé. Neither the Panel nor the Mediator has the mandate to interfere in the national decision to hold elections. Up to now, Bassolé’s approach has been to stick to his immediate identified task of securing a ceasefire between the Sudan Government and JEM, and not deal with the election issue in any visible way. This caused some concern among the participants in the hearings. In Khartoum, one civil society participant asked “Where is Bassolé? He should be here to listen to us!”

President Thabo Mbeki has listened. He and the other panellists have pushed participants to explain their views on the elections and how they should relate to the peace process. It is clear that this is not an issue he will duck or take lightly. The one hint he has given thus far is to say that the schedule for the elections further increases the need to have a credible, inclusive and accelerated peace process for Darfur.

Crucial deadlines are nearing in the interim period of Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement [3], or CPA, which ended a 22-year civil war between the North and the South. And as the deadlines grow closer the international community is at risk of sleepwalking toward the coming 2010 elections and the following southern referendum without mustering the necessary energy to stop the looming threat of war. The Obama administration is to be congratulated for bringing together key signatories and more than 30 countries and organizations in Washington this week in an effort to reinvigorate CPA implementation, but much more will need to be done. Recent events in southern Sudan [4] highlight the many problems with the current approach to the complex and ambitious project of implementing the agreement. Increasingly hostile relations between the National Congress Party, or NCP [5], and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM; a recent spate of intercommunal violence throughout the South; and an array of abandoned or unimplemented CPA provisions threaten to derail the CPA before 2011, when the semiautonomous South will likely vote for its independence from Sudan, marking the end of what is commonly referred to as the interim period. Perhaps most importantly, parties to the CPA, particularly the NCP, have not faced any cost from the international community for a failure to implement key provisions of the agreement. Until the international community changes this fundamental dynamic, no conferences or consultations will change the basic facts on the ground.

With less than 19 months remaining before the end of the CPA interim period, the international community can no longer afford to half-heartedly address these worrisome dynamics. Renewed Sudanese civil war could bring wholesale violence on a terrible scale while further destabilizing the entire region. A renewed diplomatic push in the waning period of CPA implementation built around the use of principled and direct penalties and incentives could prevent Sudan from relapsing—but this strategy will have to be more sustained, coordinated, and strategic than prior efforts, which have failed to adequately respond to recent challenges and opportunities. If there continues to be no cost for flouting key provisions of the agreement, renewed conflict is likely.
The rough road to 2011: Challenges and dangers

When the CPA was signed over four and a half years ago elections were a key element of the internationally supported strategy to set Sudan on a path toward democratic transformation. Elections offered hope of altering the predatory relationship between the repressive government in Khartoum [6] and its marginalized peripheral populations, a dynamic that has plagued Sudan for much of its 52 years of independence and that remains at the root of its interlocking crises. Elections were also seen as a means to make administrative structures in the South more accountable and effective. Today Sudan’s coming elections are not as a whole a cause for hope, but instead a sobering microcosm of the challenges facing Sudan in the run up to the 2011 referendum. The elections still mark the beginning of a process that will durably alter the country’s history, but considering the current state of play, this process might lead to the violent dissolution of the Sudanese state.
Huge hurdles and bad precedents: The elections and the referendum

Enough recently argued that while the prospect of wholesale democratic transformation in Sudan through the 2010 elections is no longer realistic, holding elections on time and in a safe environment remain essential for avoiding the outright collapse of the CPA.1 However, as delays continue to plague the electoral process and deadlines pass largely without comment or action by the ruling parties, the prospect of holding these elections at all grows more daunting. Moreover, theses challenges set a dangerous precedent that directly affects the all-important final benchmark of the interim period of CPA implementation: the referendum for the self-determination of southern Sudan.

Daunting legal and logistical obstacles currently impede the electoral process. The National Elections Act, enacted in July 2008—more than two years after the date agreed to in the CPA—is vague on the policies and procedures for the elections and draft regulations have yet to be finalized. The National Assembly recently adopted highly questionable reforms to the Press and Media Law, and it has yet to amend the National Security Act, a law that bears directly on the safeguarding of civil liberties during the electoral process. Voter registration remains an enormous logistical challenge, as it will now be held during the rainy season, a time when most of the rural and remote areas of Sudan are largely inaccessible by road. With less than nine months remaining before the polling period begins, 20 million potential voters must be registered in a voter registration process that has not yet commenced. These voters, the majority of whom are illiterate and many of whom have never voted before, will then be asked to complete a complex and confusing series of ballots, casting their vote in local, regional, and national elections.

Meanwhile the ongoing dispute between the northern and southern governments over the results of Sudan’s census has blocked progress on the elections timetable and deepened the impasse between the North and South on the crucial issue of wealth and power sharing after the referendum.

One international specialist working on Sudan’s elections told Enough, “No one is paying attention [to the elections] right now, but in six months, people will be ringing the alarm bells. By then it will be too late.”

Potentially perilous elections will directly affect the self-determination referendum for southern Sudan, which politicians in both the North and South rightly view as an event with enormous ramifications. Unlike the elections, which were reluctantly accepted by the Sudanese parties at the behest of the international community (particularly the United States), the 2011 self-determination referendum for southern Sudan is the provision of the CPA that resonates most deeply with the southern Sudanese people. Although popular perceptions around elections are mixed, the National Democratic Institute’s focus group research, which has tracked opinions in the South since the CPA was signed in 2005, shows a consistent and overwhelming desire among southern Sudanese to vote for secession in the self-determination referendum. Southerners living in remote villages do not know the exact date when they will be able to vote in the referendum—in fact, this date has not yet been set because the referendum law has not been passed—but they know that the referendum “is coming” and significant delays are a potential trigger for future violence.

The consistent delays and lack of transparency in the electoral process have set a precedent that bodes poorly for timely organization of the referendum. The referendum law is unlikely to pass in Sudan’s National Assembly before the general elections, which opens the possibility of the NCP using a new and perhaps northern-dominated body to manipulate provisions of the CPA and further forestall the referendum. Elections would then give way to an increasingly tense and potentially explosive period: the “homestretch” between the elections and the referendum. At this point progress on the preparations for the referendum will indicate whether or not the NCP is likely to act as an honest broker and allow the referendum to occur without manipulation or interference. During this period power-sharing discussions with the South now occurring under the radar might come to a head, further increasing the stakes for both the NCP and the SPLM.
Future flashpoints: Unimplemented CPA provisions

Abyei [7]: Abyei, the hotly contested, oil-producing zone which straddles the (as yet undemarcated) North-South border, is the subject of a distinct protocol in the CPA and has been considered a threat to the fragile North-South peace since the CPA was signed in 2005.2 Abyei has also been the site of multiple violations of the CPA-mandated ceasefire, most notably in May 2008, when an incident between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, or SPLA and the Sudan Armed Forces, or SAF, led to a heavy bombardment of Abyei’s civilian areas, looting of markets and homes by SAF forces, and the displacement of the entire civilian population—an estimated 90,000 people—from the town itself. The NCP then took a particularly hostile attitude when it rejecting the findings of a commission created to determine Abyei’s contested border. On July 23, two years after the Abyei Boundary Commission issued its report, the Court of Arbitration in the Hague will issue its decision on the validity of the commission’s finding, a much-anticipated ruling that has implications for future wealth sharing between the North and the South and will determine who can vote in the referendum.

North-South border demarcation: Delayed demarcation of the border between northern and southern Sudan is further amplifying the pressures between the NCP and the SPLM. This provision of the CPA, which also involved an expert commission to determine where the North-South boundary should be drawn, has been delayed and disputed because of its direct impact on future oil revenue sharing between the North and the South. In the absence of border demarcation, a military build up has taken place in both the North and the South. Any decision on the border, which snakes through many of Sudan’s oil fields, will provoke strong reactions not only from the NCP and the SPLM, but also from armed tribal militia elements stationed along the demarcated line.

Joint Integrated Units, or JIUs: In February the NCP’s Sudan Armed Forces and the SPLA clashed in Malakal, a tense town in southern Sudan near significant oil reserves. The fighting highlighted flaws in the Joint Integrated Units, or JIUs, which were created by the CPA to encourage cooperation between the northern and southern armed forces. The JIUs were yet another belatedly implemented provision of the CPA and were never given joint doctrine or command-and-control structures. In places like Malakal, where the JIUs are largely composed of former warring militia who fought on opposite sides during the North-South conflict, their presence has led to greater violence, instability, and civilian casualties.
Intercommunal tensions and pervasive insecurity in the South

In the first half of 2009 more than 1,000 people have been killed and more than 135,000 displaced by interethnic and interclan fighting in southern Sudan. The death toll in the South now exceeds the number of violent deaths in Darfur [8] during the same period, and as elections draw closer, violence and instability may well increase. Deadly cattle raids in Jonglei state, clashes between the nomadic Misseriya and Rizeigat in South Kordofan [9]’s Nuba Mountains, and Bari-Mundari fighting outside the South’s capital, Juba [10], are indicative of the sharp uptick in both the scale and scope of the violence in recent months. Road banditry throughout the South, criminal activity in Juba, and the destabilizing presence of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Western Equatoria state further illustrate the myriad internal and external destabilizing factors threatening the increasingly fragile peace in southern Sudan.

Intercommunal violence is not a new phenomenon in southern Sudan. Cattle raiding and conflict over land and grazing rights frequently took place during the North-South war, when local conflict resolution mechanisms broke down. The CPA calls for a review of land policy and the creation of a land commission to address the enduring issues of land access and ownership at the root of much of the insecurity that persists in southern Sudan. Almost no progress has been made on implementing these provisions, and land and resource tensions remain at the heart of interethnic conflict. What’s worse, reports indicate that the violence now indiscriminately targets women, children, and the elderly, a disturbing shift in cultural behavior given that cattle raiding had traditionally occurred between young male warriors.

These tribal clashes occur among a heavily armed civilian population that the poorly disciplined southern army has proved incapable of securing. In a territory almost twice the size of France, which has not yet recovered from over two decades of war, it is difficult to overstate the challenges facing the fledgling Government of Southern Sudan on every front. Without a much more stable security situation, GoSS [11] will continue to be incapable of making progress on building infrastructure and of improving its efforts to provide the “peace dividend” promised to its population by the CPA.

GoSS President and SPLM chairman Salva Kiir [12] and other top GoSS officials have attributed the recent upsurge in violence to the NCP, claiming that the northern government is arming proxy militias throughout the South in an attempt to undermine the CPA. This development is not surprising given the NCP’s strategy of eroding confidence in the CPA through calculated and destabilizing actions. Furthermore, the accusations and back and forth regarding the recent violence have exacerbated the increasing tensions between the SPLM and NCP.

Meanwhile, the GoSS’ security problems are made worse by steadily declining oil revenues, which have cut the southern government’s budget—over 98 percent of which comes from oil—by more than half. Salaries for soldiers, teachers, and other civil servants have gone unpaid for the past several months. Even without the financial crisis, the remaining funds that might have been available for building much-needed infrastructure in the South, from roads to schools, are now likely being siphoned off in support of the central driving strategy of the GoSS: preparation for a serious confrontation—namely a return to war—with the northern government.

In this climate of insecurity, the United Nations Mission in Sudan, or UNMIS [13], has struggled to operationalize its core mandate: monitoring the ceasefire and security arrangements of the CPA. UNMIS has neither anticipated the recent outbreak of violence in the South, nor responded adequately in its aftermath. UNMIS’ relative timidity has gone beyond the limits of reasonable prudence, contributing to missed opportunities to use the mission’s extensive resources to coordinate local-level responses before, during, and after violence occurs, and to build local capacity to respond to these issues in the future.
Motivations and strategies of the parties

Enough has consistently argued that both the NCP and the SPLM will seek to use the elections to strengthen their positions prior to the 2011 referendum without precipitating a CPA’s premature collapse. These strategies may persist if both parties are able to achieve their desired outcomes without causing the other side to escalate in the tense run-up to the referendum. Recent actions by the NCP, however, have demonstrated a dangerous tendency toward brinksmanship. During confrontations in both Abyei and Malakal, the NCP seemed to be “testing” the limits of the SPLM, trying to determine how far they could push the Southerners without triggering an outright explosion. Unless the international guarantors of the CPA explicitly discourage such behavior on the part of Khartoum, war could easily result from unilateral defiance pushed one notch too far—a situation that neither of the two parties desires.
National Congress Party (NCP)

As the NCP approaches its twentieth year in power, the Khartoum regime continues to exercise its well-practiced “divide-and-rule” and “delay-and-distract” tactics to great effect. By creating multiple crises and challenges to distract and confuse both the SPLM—its “partner” in the CPA—and the international community, the NCP succeeds in stymieing efforts to fully implement the CPA without resorting to obvious signs of obstruction. The NCP’s subtle but persistent policies of intransigence are paying off in its success in delaying the electoral process, border demarcation, the referendum timeline, and other key provisions. These delays amount to a deliberate sabotage of the crucial CPA benchmarks that could prevent a return to war.

President Bashir recently criticized the SPLM for attempting to stifle political opposition in the South in the upcoming elections—a criticism that is mostly unsubstantiated. He threatened to punish the SPLM for its supposed repressive practices in the South by preventing the party from campaigning in the North. Bashir’s remarks served two purposes. First, Bashir anticipated criticism of a new political party in the South, a so-called “splinter” group of the SPLM led by Lam Akol, a former SPLA commander whose relations with the Khartoum regime during and after the war led to his falling out with the mainstream SPLM. Bashir opened space for Akol’s new party, called “SPLM-Democratic Change,” to begin a campaign to openly criticize and undermine the SPLM. This effort is unfortunately well positioned to take advantage of the SPLM’s widespread criticisms for large-scale corruption. Second, Bashir threatened the SPLM’s legitimate right to campaign in the North under the pretext of concern about the ability of opposition groups to campaign in the South.

The NCP is more constrained than ever due to the International Criminal Court [14]’s recent issuance of an arrest warrant for its leader, President Bashir. However, the warrant has not slowed the NCP’s efforts to remain the one and only electoral partner of the SPLM in the North . The NCP’s eagerness for political partnership with the SPLM, which is closely related to their desire to marginalize the Northern opposition parties, should be used to extract from the Islamist party a minimum engagement toward electoral freedom next year. At present there is no sign that any of the main actors has adopted this strategy.
Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)

The SPLM is outwardly campaigning for the elections as a national party that has a legitimate chance of winning the Government of National Unity [15] presidency. By aiming to wrest control of the central state from the predatory NCP, the SPLM argues that it can preserve its former charismatic leader John Garang [16]’s vision of unity in a “New Sudan.” This vision, however, is unrealistic for a number of reasons, central among them that most southerners no longer support the concept of unity and are unlikely to support it as the SPLM’s political strategy. The deep-seated anger and historical resentment of southerners toward the NCP has not changed significantly during the CPA’s interim period.

In the North, regardless of widespread dissatisfaction with the NCP, the majority Muslim population is unlikely to vote for the SPLM, a party viewed in the North as Christian. Regardless of its external posturing, it is less than sure that the SPLM will push its leader, Salva Kiir, into the national presidential race. A presidential race in which the SPLM was represented by a symbolic candidate without realistic hope of victory would only reinforce the feeling of southern alienation and separateness. At present, everything points to a disconnect between the SPLM political elite—who still pursue a dream of winning a national victory—and a southern public which either does not believe its party can win nationally or does not care about the elections and only aims for meaningful participation in the self-determination referendum.
Preventing a return to war: recommendations

The myriad challenges and risks facing Sudan in the next 19 months cannot be addressed and mitigated unless the international community adopts a new approach to the crucial final stages of CPA implementation. Robust, coordinated, and high-level engagement is essential from all, not just a few, of the CPA’s “guarantors”—those states and organizations that witnessed the signing of the CPA and agreed to support its implementation.3 The United States and other key guarantors should play a lead role in driving this multilateral, multi-track approach, since the scale of the challenges over the coming months merit the engagement of all of the international actors who committed four years ago to supporting implementation of the CPA. This week’s Washington conference is a positive start, but should be followed-up with efforts that penalize failure to implement key provisions of the agreement. Engagement must avoid a myopic focus on the current problems and instead consider longer-term policy objectives that, after the referendum, will help prevent a violent collapse of the Sudanese state.

The international community must direct renewed energy and commitment in the remaining interim period of CPA implementation toward the following strategic priorities:

* Treat Sudan’s problems holistically and prioritize CPA implementation as the central means of addressing the roots causes of Sudan’s conflicts. The framework of the CPA was designed to address the root causes of Sudan’s interrelated conflicts, and it is the only existing agreement that addresses disparate but interconnected issues, from land conflict to armed militias, in a coordinated manner. Prioritizing CPA implementation today means understanding that Sudan’s problems are not isolated from each other. Pursuing an all-Sudan solution means working to build the peace fostered by the CPA between the North and South while simultaneously engaging in coordinated diplomatic efforts to end the war in Darfur and enable internally displaced people and refugees [17] to return home. Furthermore, the international community should make it clear that there will be costs if the parties to the CPA, particularly the NCP, do not abide by their commitments. Without movement on this issue, the basic facts on the ground will not change.

* Encourage passage of the referendum law before the elections. Applying pressure on the Government of National Unity to urge the National Assembly to review and pass the law on the southern referendum before the elections could reduce tensions between the parties after the elections and enable preparations for the referendum to begin now. Once the law is passed and the Referendum Commission is created, potential disputes, such as questions over whether or not certain populations—such as southerners in Khartoum—are eligible to vote, can be addressed before tensions escalate in the immediate run-up to the referendum.

* Focus U.N. efforts on establishing security at the local level through robust monitoring and coordination. UNMIS should play a much more proactive role in monitoring ceasefire violations by engaging with local actors to prevent violence through more robust conflict resolution programs and through rapid response teams that can quickly deploy in instances of outbreaks of violence during the electoral process. By improving information sharing and analysis at the local level and establishing dynamic military and civilian presences in tense areas, UNMIS can better develop response and protection strategies to prevent and mitigate future violence. The United States should lead efforts within the Security Council to strengthen UNMIS’ ability to support the CPA, but this support must be matched with clearer strategic vision by UNMIS on how it can best allocate its resources to operationalize its mandate amidst ongoing security threats throughout the South. Other guarantors of the CPA can support UNMIS’ efforts by contributing to coordinated programs such as security sector reform [18] within the SPLA and by providing donor support to other programs to enable GoSS to address multiple internal security challenges.

* Develop coordinated short-term and long-term policy strategies on key questions. Each guarantor of the CPA must answer several important questions regarding their government’s or organization’s policy on the remaining CPA interim period and any post-referendum scenarios. Convening policy task forces in each country and reconvening the guarantors frequently to discuss priorities and areas of concern in the remainder of the period can help clarify strategies. Coordination and regular communication with the Assessment and Evaluation Commission—a group composed of representatives from the NCP, SPLM as well as Kenya, Ethiopia, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Norway, and Italy tasked with monitoring CPA implementation—is essential to monitoring progress and breaking developments on the ground, as will regular ad hoc consultations at a more senior political level. Existing diplomatic resources, such as U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Major General Scott Gration and his counterparts in the United Kingdom among other partners, should be mobilized to lead these coordinating efforts and present a united front in negotiations with the NCP and SPLM.

* Encourage negotiations between the NCP and SPLM on long-term wealth-sharing arrangements before the 2011 referendum. Track-two diplomatic efforts can get both parties to consider various scenarios for wealth sharing after the referendum and mitigate the likelihood that these discussions will short circuit into a zero-sum game leading directly to conflict after the referendum. Discussions of access to land for populations with diverse needs and livelihoods and planning for mutually beneficial development of oilfields in the contested border region could ease current tensions over border demarcation and generate momentum for further cooperation.

MAJOR JOHNSON GUCH of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) sits outside a grass hut at the edge of Nasir, a missionary post in Nuerland that in time became a dismal town (see map). Dressed in a tracksuit, he gives the air of a local warlord. A Nuer himself, Mr Guch is commander of a joint integrated unit (JIU) of southern and northern Sudanese soldiers mandated to keep the peace in Nasir. He says he has 150 southern soldiers, each with a small tin of bullets. But he is dismissive of the northern soldiers. He does not know how many there are. He says he does not care. It is not, in any sense of the word, a joint command.

The commander of the northern troops, Captain Osman Mustafa, is more gracious, but also more disingenuous. His tent is a walk across a black wasteland pocked by the twisted wreckage of vehicles blown up in the war and little piles of human faeces left by the locals, who eschew latrines. A Muslim from the Nuba mountains, Mr Mustafa says he has 300 soldiers, enough guns and, of course, very good relations with the southerners.

Together with a hopelessly inactive UN peacekeeping force dug in on the other side of Nasir, the JIU stood by and did nothing when one group of Nuer attacked another last month, slaughtering 71 people in the nearby village of Torkej. The Lou-Nuer targeted a cattle camp tended by women and children from the Jikany. Those sleeping outside under mosquito nets were shot point blank. The Lou sprayed the huts with bullets. They drove older children into the river, where they drowned. The Lou took the cattle and Torkej’s other meagre possessions. Fifty seven wounded were taken to a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital.

The Jikany insist it is unheard of for cattle raiders to target women and children. They are furious that they had no guns to defend themselves. Under South Sudan’s patchy disarmament programme, the Jikany gave up their guns, the Lou kept theirs. Jikany elders say the Lou are working for the northern government of President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum. They believe the north supplied at least 1,000 machineguns to the Lou in recent months. They say the Lou have been attacking their neighbours on all sides, including the Murle to the south, at the behest of Mr Bashir’s government. For their part, the Lou say it is the Murle who are proxies of the northern regime.

Whatever the truth, the episode is a sign of a wider breakdown of peace across southern Sudan. In the past month or so hundreds of people have been killed in violent clashes similar to the one in Torkej, as nomadic groups compete for the best cattle and grazing land. Conflict is normal, but it is not normal for so many to be killed in this way—at least in recent years. The UN says that more people are now being killed in the south than in Darfur, Sudan’s troubled western region.

Under the terms of a peace agreement with the northern government of Mr Bashir signed in 2005, the south is expected to vote for secession in a referendum in 2011. The prospect of gaining a new country, South Sudan, raised hopes of an end to Sudan’s civil war between the predominantly Muslim north and the Christian and animist south, which lasted on and off for the best part of 50 years. At last, the flattened south would rebuild itself.

Now, however, even many southerners, let alone their fiercely partisan foreign backers, worry that the region’s progress towards independence is going awry. Not only is there the increasing rate of intertribal violence and the hostility of the north to contend with. But the south’s woes have been added to by the incompetence and corruption of the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS), mainly composed of former guerrilla fighters in the SPLM, the political movement of the SPLA. They have managed to spend about $5 billion in oil revenues over the past four years with very little to show for it, apart from weapons. At the present rate, South Sudan will fail before it has even been born.

There is no doubt that Mr Bashir’s northern government has played its part in the violence and turmoil in the south. The north has been slow to honour many of its pledges under the 2005 peace agreement with the south. In delineating the border line between the two territories, which directly effects its ownership of the country’s oil reserves, the north has refused to co-operate. This has bred deep distrust between the two sides. JIUs, therefore, like the soldiers at Nasir, are “joint” in name only, and unable to keep order in the disputed border regions.

Yet it is wrong to blame the north alone. The World Food Programme says the malnutrition rate in South Sudan is 16%, which signals a permanent humanitarian emergency. Over the past four years, despite billions of dollars in revenues, the GOSS has failed to build a single paved road outside Juba, the capital. In many towns, let alone the remoter areas, the putative government of the state of South Sudan has made barely any impression at all; most new clinics or schools have been built by churches or foreign charities. Increasingly, the mess is being blamed on the south’s own politicians.

The widespread perception is that the GOSS is corrupt, especially at the lower levels. The army chief was removed in a recent reshuffle after he failed to account for missing salaries. Foreign governments are reluctant to pump much-needed cash into the southern government’s coffers for fear that it will be squandered.

Guns not butter (or anything else)

After the sharp fall in the price of oil last year, the GOSS suffered a collapse in its oil revenues, which make up 98% of its income. Although the government cannot be blamed for the fall in oil prices, many question why it remains so beholden to the vagaries of one commodity. Oil output is not forecast to increase in 2010 and prices, though far off their lows, may now rise only slightly.

The government needs money. The GOSS has spent over half of its income on paying its old soldiers and buying new weapons. The SPLA argues that this is an insurance against the north in case it tries to prevent secession in 2011, but the policy leaves little cash for anything else. The government has been unable to pay salaries for months at a time and teachers recently threatened to go on strike. Some argue that the south is now bankrupt, although one person familiar with the budget process says that is an exaggeration: “It’s bad, but not a disaster.”

This week saw the first sign of an internal rebellion against the perceived misrule in Juba. The influential former foreign minister, Lam Akol, is founding his own party to challenge the SPLM. “Why did the SPLM fail to govern South Sudan even though it had all the money and 70% of the power?” he asked. Mr Akol will probably fight the SPLM in the national elections due next year. Given the SPLM’s poor record in office so far, he may do rather well.

ACCORDING to the United Nations special envoy to Sudan, Ashraf Qazi, violent conflict has killed more people in recent months in south Sudan than in Darfur. Mr Qazi is not trying to play down the awfulness of the situation in Sudan’s western region, where about 300,000 have died as result of fighting since 2003 and more than 2.5m have been displaced. Rather, he was drawing attention to the sad fact that the south is now slipping back into its pristine state of widespread insecurity from which it was supposed to have been rescued by a peace deal in 2005.

Most of the recent deaths in the south have been caused by inter-tribal fighting, usually linked to land rights. As the rainy season arrives in different parts of Africa’s largest country, so the traditional competition for the best grazing areas for cattle and other livestock becomes more intense. Central Sudan, particularly in the state of Southern Kordofan, has been hit by heavy fighting recently. Last week it was reported that perhaps as many as 250 people had been killed in clashes between the Rizeigat and Misseriya, two Arab nomadic tribes that populate the area around the Nuba mountains.

These sorts of tribal fights over access to the best grazing lands have been at the heart of many of Sudan’s bloody wars. Up to the 1980s, such conflict was well managed by local inter-tribal councils. Such forums used to resolve how far the nomadic tribes, or pastoralists, would be allowed to bring their cattle through the lands of settled farmers. The marauding herds would cause a lot of damage as they passed through the farmers’ fields; but inter-tribal councils worked out the compensation that the nomads had to pay to the farmers as a result.

This system, however, broke down in the 1980s after the terrible drought and famine of the early 1980s, during which some nomadic tribes lost as much as 80% of their livestock. Furthermore, many of the Arab tribes were now armed, for their own political purposes, by the Islamist politicians in the central government in Khartoum. This made the young nomads much less inclined to use old peaceful arbitration methods; now the armed nomads could just shoot their way through.

But it is dispiriting that these clashes still happen, and on the scale of the past few weeks. In recent years the UN and international NGOs have tried to revive the old tribal arbitration systems, even demarcating the seasonal migration routes with clearly marked poles. Yet still the fighting continues, in the south, in the centre and in Darfur.

The problems in the south have been compounded by other factors. The government of south Sudan, based in Juba, has suffered from the falling price of oil. This means that almost their only source of revenue has dropped by about half over the past year. As a consequence, the government’s old guerrilla army has not been paid for months, teachers have been on strike, and the money for new roads, hospitals and schools has all but dried up. This has provoked more tension as the southern tribes begin to compete for a dwindling pot of money. None of this bodes well for a peaceful national election, supposed to be the first time in four decades that the country has voted as one, that is scheduled to be held next February.

May 26, 2009 — “Selling “ someone “downriver”, according to any U.S.-savvy thesaurus, has the clear connotation of “sell-out” and, with reference to the shameful U.S. history of slavery, of angry masters selling uncooperative slaves down the Mississippi River into harsher conditions further south. In the context of Sudan, of course, the great Nile River flows north through Khartoum. Selling the people of Southern Sudan “downriver” thus would clearly connote selling them out to the Khartoum-based National Congress Party cabal (formerly the National Islamic Front) that purports to ‘govern’ Sudan.

Is this the direction in which the U.S. is now headed?

That conclusion is not at this time clearly justified, but concerns are growing. It is clear that the new U.S. policy on Sudan, which has largely been kept under wraps, has significantly shifted away from the previous policy of confronting the NCP over the gross mistreatment of its opponents, particularly those of African lineage and culture. Beyond the hundreds of thousands of dead Darfuris are the all-but-forgotten two-and-a-half million dead Southern Sudanese and allied populations who are no longer among the living because of the policies of those currently in power in Khartoum. Since coming to power by coup in 1989, President Omer Bashir has presided over the deaths of some three million of his countrymen, qualifying his regime as runner-up to the Holocaust in body count, without paying any price whatsoever. He was rightly indicted by the International Criminal Court for Khartoum’s miscreant performance in Darfur, despite the whining of a morally-deficient African Union and Arab League. Suddenly though, it appears the U.S. Administration wants to make nice with him and his cabal.

There are good reasons to engage Khartoum. The previous Administration’s efforts to bring peace to Southern Sudan were energetic and successful; its efforts on Darfur were not. It seemed unable to ‘walk and chew gum’ at the same time. Its efforts to isolate Khartoum were a miserable failure. A new approach was clearly needed, one that genuinely helps to bring peace, justice and development to the people of Darfur and which also ensures the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which brought peace to South Sudan and its allied regions is fully implemented. There are and, given the track record of the National Congress Party, will surely be reasons to pressure and penalize Khartoum for its frequent unconscionable behavior. But if the Administration’s approach actually includes a full range of tough options for responding to Khartoum duplicity, it is a too well-kept secret. Publically, it has only “made nice” with Khartoum. That track record, especially when reinforced by words of ‘niceness’ by Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, should greatly concern anyone who yearns for a ‘New Sudan’ of peace, justice and development.

Bashir’s twentieth anniversary as President of Sudan will be this June 30th. Ever since he came to power, the leadership group in Khartoum has largely remained intact. That leadership element is very able and also very committed to their divisive vision for Sudan and the region. They have seen scores of American diplomats come and go and have outfoxed and outlasted them all. They are masters at creating a crisis and then, at American insistence, partially ‘resolving’ that crisis and thereby creating amongst those Americans an image of being “someone we can work with”. This, for example, is what Khartoum has done recently concerning the recent expulsion of humanitarian nongovernmental relief agencies from Darfur. That tactic in the past has usually been followed by a pattern of NCP promises made and then broken. It is an established NCP approach that routinely blunts, even shatters, every untutored U.S. diplomatic strategy.

The Administration is, I believe legitimately, intending to reach out to the Arab and Islamic worlds to seek seriously to improve relations. In fact, President Obama is expected to give a speech reaching out to those peoples while he visits Egypt next week. While legitimately engaging responsible leaders and communities, it is terribly important that he not simply lump the NCP with them. As long as an unfettered NCP remains in stolen power at Sudan’s Center, marginalized Sudanese-North, South, East and West-will be at risk, subject to NCP whim. Humanitarian assistance and protection of the NCP’s civilian victims, while critical, are not a solution per se to this kind of problem. Peaceful change in governance at the Center can be a solution and is the one already agreed to in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

A U.S. policy on Sudan that does not solidly seek to assure full implementation of the CPA would amount to selling Southern Sudanese and Darfuris for that matter, ‘downriver’. It would also be an unmerited happy birthday present to Omer Bashir.

The author is the Former Special Representative on Sudan.

TWO months after the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, for alleged war crimes in his country’s battered western region of Darfur, he seems to be sitting pretty. He has remained entirely unapologetic for the deaths of some 300,000 of his compatriots. On the day the indictment was announced he expelled 13 Western aid agencies which had been trying to keep Darfur’s 2.7m displaced people alive. He continues to denounce the court as a tool of Western neo-imperialism. He has gone on very public trips to friendly neighbouring countries, such as Egypt and Ethiopia. And he was hailed as a hero at a summit of the 22-country Arab League in Qatar, an ally of the West. In sum, he has demonstrated that the arm of the ICC’s law is embarrassingly short.

But beneath the surface, things have been less simple, less predictable and less easy for Mr Bashir. Many expected his government to lash out at its enemies, real or imagined, even more fiercely. After its initial huff and puff, it has not done so. In truth, Sudan’s rulers have been rattled by the indictment. As a result, they have been trying anew to ingratiate themselves with the West and with governments farther afield on a range of issues, all in the hope of persuading the UN Security Council to ask the ICC to suspend its indictment, which it has the power to do, for a year at a time. Despite the Sudanese government’s defiant rhetoric and the expulsion of the aid agencies, it has quietly shifted on several points. It can change tack again, as it has before. But it is plainly not immovable.

For a start, a month after the expulsion of the aid agencies, Sudan’s government announced it would honour its promise to hold a general election, albeit a bit later than expected, in February 2010. Under a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), signed in 2005 with former rebels in the south who had been fighting for autonomy or secession for most of the past four decades, nationwide elections were supposed to be held this year. Some opposition politicians expected the beleaguered Mr Bashir, enraged by the indictment, to junk the American-brokered CPA and to break his election promise. But his refusal to do so hints at a reluctance to burn all his diplomatic bridges with the West.

If all goes well, the elections will be the first fully democratic ones since 1986, three years before Mr Bashir came to power in a coup. There are still many pitfalls, not least the compilation of a voters’ register that everyone can agree on. But assuming the poll is held, Mr Bashir and his National Congress Party might conceivably lose the presidency to Salva Kiir, the leader and likely candidate of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, the southerners’ former rebel group.

And there have been flickers of hope over Darfur itself. After the indictment, Mr Bashir’s government and one of the biggest rebel groups in Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), broke off negotiations that had just begun, for the first time in years, in Qatar’s capital, Doha. But those talks have lately resumed. It would be better if all the various Darfuri rebel factions were involved. But negotiating with the best-armed lot is better than nothing.

Hopes of a successful outcome were raised on May 3rd when the governments of Sudan and Chad, its western neighbour, agreed to normalise relations after talks brokered by Qatar and Libya. Chad’s government has often stirred the pot in Darfur by arming and backing JEM.

This diplomatic spurt has been encouraged by America’s new envoy to Sudan, an energetic former air-force general, Scott Gration, who has been advising Barack Obama on African affairs for several years. Unlike his two predecessors, Mr Gration has been appointed as a full-time envoy, stressing Mr Obama’s eagerness to help make peace in Darfur. Mr Gration was born in Congo to missionary parents, speaks Swahili and knows the region well.

Above all, Sudan’s government still craves normal diplomatic ties with America and yearns to be taken off the State Department’s list of sponsors of terror. This is the West’s strongest lever for persuading Mr Bashir to end his military campaign in Darfur and to meet his obligations under the CPA, such as holding elections.

All these initiatives may lead nowhere. Sudan has long seemed inclined to fragmentation and conflict. No sooner had Chad signed its latest pact with Sudan than it accused Mr Bashir’s army of launching an attack across the border, which the Sudanese denied. By the same token, JEM was reluctant to attend the meeting in Qatar, but Mr Gration persuaded it to do so.

Since the turn of the year, fighting—between government forces and the rebels, and between tribes and rebel factions in the ravaged west—has been sporadic. Supplies of food and medicine left behind by the foreign agencies have nearly run out. But at least people are talking. And Sudan’s prickly government is giving a little ground, despite—or perhaps even because of—that controversial ICC indictment.

BOR, Sudan — The nascent government of southern Sudan, a key U.S. ally in the volatile nation, is threatened by severe problems including severe cash shortages and growing ethnic tensions spawned by a national ruling party determined to see the south fail, southern officials say.

The future of Sudan as a whole is closely tied to what happens in this oil-rich region, where the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM, fought a brutal, 21-year civil war against the government rooted in claims of discrimination by a northern, Arab elite. More than 2 million southerners died in the conflict, and millions more were displaced.

A U.S.-backed deal ending the war in 2005 transformed the rebels into a semiautonomous government, and promised power-sharing with the central government and a referendum on southern independence in 2011. In the process, the SPLM emerged as a symbol of hope for millions of Sudanese and became one of the few viable political challengers to the ruling party led by Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, whom the International Criminal Court has charged with war crimes in a separate crisis in the country’s western Darfur region.

But as attention has focused on Darfur, the south’s troubles have multiplied. The four-year-old government is facing a $100 million-a-month cash-flow shortage caused by declining oil revenue, according to a recent report by the group Refugees International. And across the south, massive cattle raids are overwhelming local authorities and increasing tribal tensions kept at bay during the war.

In the scrubby landscape surrounding this town where the civil war began, the spear-and-machete raids of the past have become more like military operations. Machine-gun toting, camouflage-wearing tribal militias use satellite phones and launch rocket-propelled grenades to move thousands of stolen cattle. In February, young militiamen from the Lou Nuer tribe captured an entire town, displacing at least 5,000 people as southern soldiers stood by and watched, according to local officials and aid workers, who say that more than 700 people were killed in the incident. A retaliatory attack by the Murle tribe against the Lou Nuer this month killed more than 250 people, according to local officials.

“With this insecurity, we can’t collect taxes, we can’t open schools, we can’t drill for water,” said Abraham Jok Aring, the Bor county commissioner. “Sometimes people tell me it was better during the war, because at least then we were getting support from the international community.”

Southern officials accuse Bashir’s inner circle of continuing to arm tribal militias that were used as proxies during the civil war and of other dirty tricks aimed at destabilizing the region ahead of the 2011 referendum on its independence. They say the north has gerrymandered boundaries to ensure that oil areas are in the north, undercounted southerners in a recent census, and dispatched militia leaders to contested oil areas to intimidate war-weary southerners.

The incidents are “indicative of the ruling party’s intention to sabotage the referendum,” said John Prendergast, co-chairman of the Enough Project, an advocacy group working to prevent genocide. “This regime will set the south on fire using these proxy militias rather than allow a referendum to occur.”

Corruption and Tribalism

Increasingly, though, southerners are blaming the southern liberation movement itself.

In recent years, southern officials have been caught up in corruption scandals in which they have been accused of wasting millions of dollars. Tribalism is emerging in southern politics, with politicians accusing one another of manipulating ethnic divisions for their own gain. Some complain that power is concentrated in the hands of the Dinka, the tribe of the movement’s revered late leader John Garang. Government campaigns to disarm civilians have been spotty at best, with weapons left over from the war fueling the cattle-raiding epidemic devastating southern communities that depend on cows for everything from marriage dowries to school fees.

“The SPLM has not endeared itself to many parts of south Sudan,” said Taban Lo Liyong, a literature professor at the University of Juba, in the regional capital, and a frequent critic of the movement. “You can’t keep repeating, ‘It’s the Arabs, it’s the Arabs, it’s the Arabs.’ “

The government of southern Sudan started from scratch four years ago. Newly appointed officials fresh from the bush had to learn to call one another “honorable” instead of “comrade,” as well as how to run a government. Juba, the swampy capital, was essentially a collection of straw huts along the Nile River. Outlying towns, including Bor, were mostly bombed-out bush clearings.

These days, the capital has a few paved roads, power in some spots, newly constructed government buildings and fleets of government sport-utility vehicles that clog the roads along with goats and cows.

But as millions of southerners have returned home, the government has had trouble extending its reach beyond the capital, a problem evident in this town four-hours away by dirt road.

Maj. Gen. Riak Akon Riak, the state police commissioner here, said he has 3,000 officers to patrol his state, Jonglei. Most of his police officers don’t have weapons. For the entire force, he has eight trucks. By comparison, he said, the various tribes in his area are “armed to the teeth,” with people able to acquire a Kalashnikov for about two cows.

“All the counties around here have tribes that took on the military culture during the war,” he said. “And the police cannot do anything unless the tribes are disarmed.”

Distrust of Government

Just 10 miles or so beyond Bor, the village of Chuet Padol — an expanse of a few hundred straw huts and yellow grass ringed by forest — has one officer on foot patrol.

Cattle raiders from the Murle tribe struck four times this year, in groups of 50 or more. Recently, the raiders came in broad daylight, shooting one herder and shooing away 50 cows into the surrounding forest, said Daniel Chol Anyeth, a local Dinka chief, who was sitting under a tree with several other men with little to do now that almost all their cows are gone.

Like many villagers around here, Anyeth complained that the government had disarmed his people but not the Murle, some of whom served as militiamen for the Sudanese government during the civil war. Recently, southern soldiers intercepted several cases of ammunition that were being floated down the Nile in a boat from points north, allegedly headed to Murle territory. People here suspect the Khartoum government of providing the ammunition to the tribe, which many here accuse of stealing young children during cattle raids and selling them to childless families.

The result is growing frustration among locals who suffered through a war and now must teach their children to hide before a raid.

“We’ve not received anything from the CPA,” said Anyeth, referring to the peace deal, known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. “Even during the war it was better — at least we had guns. We’ve had one water tap since the CPA. One school. One health clinic.”

But many SPLM loyalists say the movement is suffering from understandable growing pains complicated by the ruling party’s attempts to undermine it.

Many southern leaders acknowledge that much of the movement’s success was wrapped up in the persona of Garang, who died in a helicopter crash in 2005 and whose photo hangs over every government minister’s desk.

A charismatic and at times ruthless leader, Garang put his young rebels through political training intended to stifle tribal issues and instill his vision of uniting all of Sudan’s marginalized people.

“Garang’s vision was more powerful than clans and divisions,” said Bouth Chou, a local SPLM party official. “I’m not saying the government is not capable, but you can be effective during war, but with development, not be so effective.”

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan has crisscrossed the Arab and African world recently in a bald-faced attempt to show strength after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

He chose Egypt, Eritrea and Libya as his first ports of call, then made his way to Qatar for the Arab League summit. These countries are among the minority of the world’s nations that have not joined the International Criminal Court. Unlike the close to 110 that have joined, these governments have no legal obligation to arrest him on the court’s behalf. They would do well to remember, though, that the Security Council has expressly urged even states that are not part of the court to cooperate.

These countries and others that might open their doors Bashir might want to reconsider. Not only is he an accused war criminal, but in retaliation for the warrant, his government threatened the lives of Sudan’s most vulnerable.

Within hours after the I.C.C. announced its warrant, 13 key relief organizations that were supplying food and water to 1.1 million people and medical care to 1.5 million were ousted from Sudan. Bashir is not someone who should be welcomed, but someone who should be held to account.

We can expect that someday he will face trial. When former presidents Charles Taylor of Liberia and Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia were indicted for war crimes while sitting as heads of states, nobody expected to see them in court. But that is what happened. International justice has increasingly shown that no one is above the law.

The U.N. Security Council could suspend his case, but suspension will only encourage further abuses.

The priority for both the Arab League and the African Union should be to press Sudan to readmit the aid groups. This would help ensure that the victims of atrocities in Darfur are not further victimized. This would also make a far better headline than Bashir boarding yet another plane.

From The Economist

Sudan will hold general elections in 2010 – a year later than expected – the electoral commission has announced.

The deputy chairman of the commission, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, said the electoral process would begin next month and finish in February next year.

Under the 2005 peace deal to end years of war in the south, the elections were supposed to be held this year.

The SPLM, former rebels from the south, are expected to field a candidate against President Omar al-Bashir.

He has been indicted for war crimes in Darfur by the International Criminal Court.

Mr Abdullah said there would be six elections: national presidential and parliamentary, the south Sudanese presidency, state governors, the southern parliament and state assemblies.

“The results will be declared by the end of February. The voting will take place earlier in the month,” he told Reuters news agency.

SPLM spokesman Yien Matthew said the former rebels were happy with the date.

The polls would be Sudan’s first democratic elections in more than two decades.

The peace deal ended a 21-year civil war between the north and the south.

The two parties signed the 2005 deal and share power at a national level but analysts say relations remain tense.

The peace deal gave the south a semi-autonomous government and provided for a referendum on independence for the south by 2011.

NYALA, Sudan — The sign outside the clinic in Otash camp reads “8-hour service daily.”

On Friday, Haider Ismael al-Amin lay in his mother’s arms, his 10-year-old body withered and weak from dehydration after a night of vomiting. But the door to the clinic was locked. After 30 minutes of waiting, his family gave up.

“The white people used to come every day,” said Hawa Hamal Mohammed, a relative of the boy. “Now the clinic is closed.”

The American aid group that operated the clinic, the International Rescue Committee, was one of more than a dozen aid groups expelled from Darfur this month by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. He accused them of cooperating with the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which had issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of war crimes in the conflict that has consumed Darfur for years.

Since then, local health workers have been struggling, with almost no medicine, to keep the clinic open on a limited basis. Thousands of people in this sprawling camp depend on it for primary care.

But on Friday it was closed altogether.

The expulsion of organizations that provided clean water, medical treatment, food and shelter for millions of Sudanese in the war-racked region of Darfur has thrown the world’s largest aid operation into disarray, putting the lives of millions of displaced people at risk.

The Sudanese government has pledged that local aid groups and government agencies will fill the gap, and that assistance from the World Food Program and other United Nations agencies still operating in Darfur will help avert an immediate crisis of widespread water and food shortages.

But the enormous aid effort in Darfur, which costs more than $1 billion a year and requires more than 10,000 workers from dozens of organizations, is already slowing, aid officials here say.

Although no one yet knows how the remaining organizations will cope with the gargantuan task of keeping the most destitute alive, the levels of disease and misery in the vast camps where people who fled their homes in the conflict live are all but certain to rise. Already the most vulnerable, the oldest and youngest, are succumbing.

At the edge of Otash camp, a collection of some 30,000 people in South Darfur, the male relatives of Asha Adam dug her tiny grave. The infant girl died after suffering from uncontrollable diarrhea, her family said. Such illnesses have become common, as water has become scarce in the camp and living conditions deteriorate, according to residents. The girl’s father, Ahmed Abdul Majid, 55, said he had nine children.

In some highly politicized camps, residents are protesting the government’s actions by refusing to accept help from organizations other than the ones that were expelled, aid workers and government officials say. Kalma, one of the biggest and oldest camps, with about 90,000 people, has been off limits to journalists for weeks, but Sudanese aid workers there have said that a tense standoff is brewing.

The water pumps in the camp require fuel, and the fuel is almost gone. United Nations and government officials have nearly 50 barrels of fuel, along with other supplies, ready to be delivered, but the residents have refused. Four people have been reported dead in a meningitis outbreak, but camp leaders have barred government health workers from going into the camp to vaccinate, aid workers said.

Al-Hadi Ahmed al-Najim, the government’s humanitarian coordinator in South Darfur, said that Kalma residents had refused all efforts for help.

“Kalma is an international red card over our government’s head,” he said in an interview. “It is to be made clear that this is an irreversible decision. If they want facilities, we are ready to facilitate that. If they refuse, we are not going to enter by force.”

The United Nations has tried to fill the gap left by the departure of organizations like the health charity Doctors Without Borders, which had to abandon hospitals and clinics in several hard-hit areas, and Oxfam Great Britain, which provided clean water and latrines to hundreds of thousands of people in camps across the region. Without these essential services, it will be virtually impossible to control waterborne infectious diseases, like cholera and meningitis, that often arrive with the rains, which are likely to begin in a few weeks.

But United Nations agencies like the World Food Program and Unicef relied heavily on private aid groups to carry out their programs, and while many aid groups remain in Darfur, the loss of some of the biggest has made that work increasingly difficult, aid officials said.

“We may not have an immediate crisis on our hands,” said one senior aid official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of operations in Darfur. “But in a few weeks, when the rains start and the hungry season begins, that is when the real impact of this decision will be felt.”

Feeding centers for malnourished children were already seeing hundreds of patients a week, and those numbers normally quadruple in the lean season before the harvest. Without organizations that run the specialized clinics that feed underweight and malnourished children with fortified porridge, more children will surely die, aid workers in Darfur said.

The decision to expel the aid groups appears to have been made well before the International Criminal Court announcement, and it was carried out with ruthless efficiency, aid groups said. Government forces arrived at the offices of several charities and ordered workers to leave, and then the forces seized valuable equipment like computers, cars and generators, according to aid officials here.

“This was in the works for a long time,” one senior aid official involved in Darfur relief said. “They had been waiting for a chance to strike out at these organizations.”

The Sudanese government has long suspected aid organizations of collaborating with the court by providing evidence and helping prosecutors gather testimony from victims. But aid groups say that they have gone out of their way to avoid even the appearance of collaboration.

At the United Nations, Sudan has faced intense pressure from Western countries to allow the aid organizations to resume their work. But Sudanese officials are adamant that there will be no change.

“The decision of the government of Sudan is a legitimate sovereign decision which we will never reverse, and this should not be an issue for discussion,” Mohamed Yousif Ibrahim Abdelmannan, Sudan’s envoy to the United Nations, told the Security Council last week.

WANTED: New recruits and renewed energy for the global activist movement aimed at ending the genocide in Darfur and promoting peace in Sudan

The Obama administration offers a fresh opportunity for the United States to meaningfully engage in an effort to bring peace to Sudan at a time when the stakes have never been higher. Nevertheless, policymakers still need the collective voice of activists to keep the conflict high on their agendas and to generate public support for making tough decisions. We explore the impressive accomplishments of Sudan activists to date; the windows of opportunity for peace in Sudan; and what you can do. The bottom line: thoughtful, persistent activism makes a difference. The genocide in Darfur won’t end overnight, and there are no guarantees that the North-South war won’t resume, but there are a number of factors that provide a real opportunity for lasting peace in Sudan— if the international community acts boldly and swiftly. Such action will come if—and probably only if—activists continue to generate enough light and heat to point the way.

The Sudanese regime’s willingness to use starvation as a weapon of war and tool of punishment through its mass expulsion of humanitarian groups has put more than 1 million lives immediately in peril in Darfur, and threatens to unravel the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA. The regime used similar tactics of denying humanitarian aid in an earlier war in Southern Sudan which was far more deadly than Darfur—precisely because the government was willing to starve its opponents. The kind of robust and courageous action needed now from the Obama administration and its allies will likely not be forthcoming unless there is a political demand for such action from dedicated constituencies of activists.

The activist movement for peace in Sudan is needed now more than ever. This is the time to speak out: to save lives; to work toward a lasting peace; and to hold those who have conducted war crimes accountable.

What activists have helped achieve in Sudan

Many critics look at Darfur’s continuing crisis and pronounce activist efforts aimed at stopping the genocide a failure.

Not so fast.

Activists helped put the issue on the map for former President George W. Bush and the 2008 presidential candidates, forcing them to address a situation that might have otherwise been lost in a sea of competing domestic priorities. Activists, however, have done much more than simply garner attention for this cause. Let’s look at what has actually been accomplished in part due to activist efforts:

1. Saving lives: Hundreds of thousands of Darfurians are very likely alive today because of the strength of the anti-genocide activist movement. Author Samantha Power, a recent addition to Obama’s White House team, has argued correctly that in the absence of the extraordinary global activist effort to shine a light on what is happening in Darfur, the death toll would have been far higher. Look back in history—to a time when there was not a mobilized and active anti-genocide constituency—at what the Sudanese regime did in Southern Sudan during the 20-year-old war there: tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of Southerners perished each time the regime cut off access for humanitarian aid, until the estimated death toll reached more than 2 million.2 Because of the globalization of the anti-genocide movement, it is impossible for the Sudanese regime to do that in Darfur without a huge international outcry from activists, journalists and governments. Additionally, activist-driven initiatives on the ground in Darfur, such as pressing for the establishment of firewood patrols in the absence of a UNAMID presence around displaced camps and providing solar-cooking stoves to reduce the number of trips outside protected areas continue to save lives. With more than 1 million people now threatened by the loss of humanitarian assistance, the need for activists to speak out has never been greater.
2. Supporting peacemaking: At the beginning of the Bush administration’s time in office, before the Darfur war erupted, many Christian organizations, activists, and key members of Congress pressed for a robust response to the deadly North-South war. In response, the United States engaged deeply and helped lead a complex peace process that resulted in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 ending that war, for now. Furthermore, Darfur activist efforts around the time of the 2006 Washington, D.C. rally resulted in President Bush sending a top diplomat to negotiate an end to the Darfur war, but poor, ill-conceived proposals and hurried negotiations left the resulting deal dead on arrival. These two examples of activist-led pressure leading to governmental action are promising illustrations of what activists have already helped achieve for Sudan as we continue our call for a renewed “Peace Surge.” Activists need to be clear that the broad strategic goal of their efforts is a comprehensive and lasting peace for all of Sudan.
3. Acting against war criminals: The Bush administration’s strong opposition to the International Criminal Court nearly doomed an effort by the U.N. Security Council to refer the case of Darfur to the court. However, a major push by activists and congressional allies led the Bush administration to set aside its normal reservations about international justice, and let the referral pass. The resulting investigation has led to an arrest warrant for President Omer al-Bashir—along with another senior regime official and a militia leader—on war crimes and crimes against humanity and ongoing investigations of senior commanders of a few of Darfur’s rebel groups for their role in attacks against U.N. peacekeepers. Activists should be clear: there will likely never be a lasting peace without justice in Sudan, and current efforts to defer charges against President Bashir are incredibly ill-advised.
4. Deploying peacekeepers: Despite consistent pledges by the Sudanese government that they would never allow U.N. peacekeeping troops in Darfur, 15,000 troops currently make up a U.N. and African Union hybrid force attempting to provide some measure of monitoring and protection to Darfuri civilians. Woefully ill-equipped, this peacekeeping force was badly designed from the start as it was sent to keep a peace that did not exist while lacking the credible military deterrent to keep warring parties at bay. However, without activist pressure, the international community would surely not even have put this force in place. Activists were able to generate the necessary political will to get troops authorized and deployed, but in the absence of a peace deal the effectiveness of the peacekeepers remains compromised, and members of the Security Council are to be blamed for not creating UNAMID as a force that is able to even carry out basic civilian protection functions. Activists should continue to push for a more effective peacekeeping force on the ground, and ensure that the government of Sudan doesn’t have a de facto veto over its operations.
5. Stepping into the financial supply chain: It has been estimated that 70 percent of the Sudanese government’s oil revenue goes to military operations which have carried out the genocide in Darfur. A campaign, first initiated by students and spearheaded by the Sudan Divestment Task Force, a project of the Genocide Intervention Network, has resulted in 12 companies ceasing operations in Sudan or significantly changing their behavior in the country. So far, 27 states and more than 60 universities and colleges have adopted divestment policies for companies supporting the Sudanese government- ensuring that Americans are not investing in genocide. Activists should continue to support local divestment campaigns, screen personal mutual funds, and continue efforts to ensure that this genocide is not carried out on our dime.

The overriding challenge for activists now is to raise our voices and press for peace in all of Sudan. We must urge the Obama administration to lead international efforts toward holistic peace throughout Sudan by ending the crisis and forging an agreement for Darfur and fully implementing the existing peace deal between North and South. If the situation in Sudan is not where we would like today, it is probably the result of too little activism, not too much.

A case for continued activism

In the summer of 2004, the U.S. Congress unanimously declared the situation in Darfur to be genocide. As we approach the fifth anniversary of this resolution, activist efforts are needed more than ever to provide a political incentive to U.S. and other policymakers to end the crisis in Sudan rather than just manage its symptoms. Activists come from all walks of life and come to the issue for many different reasons. As we recruit new activists and make the case to existing activists that their continued engagement is crucial, let’s remember what some of the critical motivations are for why people join the movement and reach out a helping hand to the people of Sudan:

1. The moral imperative

No one can claim to be merely a bystander to the world’s problems and injustices. We are all involved in shaping the world we live in, whether for better or for worse. The surge of activism surrounding the conflict in Sudan reflects a shared and essential impulse to shape it for the better—to, when confronted with the grim recital of violence, hunger and displacement in Sudan, do something about it.

Our government also plays an important role in shaping the world we live in. In the case of Sudan, the United States has equivocated and delayed; it has made fighting the spread of terrorism and intelligence-sharing such an overwhelming strategic priority that it has overshadowed efforts to resolve the conflict, and actually enabled the perpetrators of genocide to continue to commit mass atrocities with impunity. This policy clearly goes against our nation’s values.

In towns and cities around the country hang banners that read: ‘Darfur, A Call to Your Conscience.’ They are spot on. Responding to the crisis in Sudan is fundamentally about our responsibility to affirm our belief in the value of human life and call on our government to promote policies that reflect our nation’s core values. The moral element of activism also reflects growing international support for the basic tenets of the Responsibility to Protect, for instance, the notion that countries have a primary responsibility to protect their own citizens and that the international community has a responsibility to act when these governments fail to do so. Sudan’s decision to cut humanitarian aid for more than 1 million people is a perfect example of a state failing to fulfill its responsibility to protect, and the United Nations has said as much.

2. Our globally shared interests

The increasingly interconnected nature of the world we live in means that the well-being and security of Americans is inextricably linked to the lives of people thousands of miles away. Terrorism, insurgencies, organized crime, drug trafficking, infectious disease, environmental crises, refugee flows, and mass migration can spill over into neighboring states, destabilizing entire regions. Our world is often like a gigantic spider web: touch one part of it and you set the whole thing trembling.

The consequences of war in Sudan have not only left hundreds of thousands of Sudanese dead or displaced and Sudan’s infrastructure in tatters, but they have also strained relations between Sudan and its neighbor to the west, Chad, while threatening to lead to a wider, regional war in the greater horn of Africa. It is increasingly understood that failed states or ungoverned regions can become an incubator for extremism, terrorist recruitment, and other cross-border threats. The United States cannot afford to ignore the crisis and achieving peace there could lead to positive spillover effects in surrounding countries.

3. Faith-based principles

Those motivated to act by their faith do so because they believe it is right to defend the powerless and protect life. Christians, Jews, Muslims, and those from other faiths who have engaged in activist efforts are committed to aiding the poor, protecting life, and pursuing peace and justice—all pillars of the major faiths.

In particular, churches, synagogues, and mosques have provided venues for faith-based organizing to press for more robust action in support of peace and justice in Sudan. Many activists are deeply rooted in spiritual reflection over their responsibilities in the world. Ultimately, we are indeed our brothers’ and sisters’ keeper.

The anti-genocide movement is comprised of people from all walks of life, with many different motivations. Students, faith-based groups, and a diverse constituency of concerned citizens throughout the country have come together to express their sentiment that the destruction of human life on the basis of identity is simply not acceptable in the 21st century.

4. Common sense and prevention

There is increasing recognition that early and robust responses to crises and mass atrocities not only help limit the number of killed and displaced in that given situation, but they also have a positive effect in preventing other crises and tragedies down the road. The broader establishment of the responsibility to protect and basic norms of international justice lay down a clear marker from activists and the international community that wholesale violence against civilians is simply unacceptable and can only be conducted with real costs to those who would perpetrate such crimes. A focus on prevention also makes good sense in terms of foreign policy and the national interest. Indeed, the United States still spends billions on humanitarian assistance, much of which could have been avoided if more effective responses were developed far earlier in a crisis. Getting policymakers to shift toward a posture of prevention has been daunting, and pressure from activists is essential in getting policymakers to adopt a more forward-looking approach.
Windows of opportunity for peace now

This happens to be an extraordinary moment for Sudan, in which dangers and opportunities are colliding with highly unpredictable consequences. These are the windows that we see opening just enough to provide for the possibility of peace—despite the incredibly provocative and dangerous move by President Bashir to expel key humanitarian relief organizations:

* The International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for President Bashir has the potential to both create divisions within the ruling party and further establish accountability for crimes against humanity. This will provide substantial leverage over the regime if diplomatic efforts unfold properly.
* China’s concerns about its $8 billion investment in the oil sector will require this emerging superpower to support peace efforts in Darfur and the South, even if only to provide the stability to protect its investments. There is an opportunity for the United States to work with China to help bring an end to war in Sudan, even though China’s failure to date to condemn the expulsion of relief organizations calls in to question Beijing’s commitment to stability in Sudan. Many of these organizations were carrying out work vital to supporting the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, and without these implementing organizations on the ground, the badly fraying CPA will be in even greater danger.
* Sudanese elections scheduled for later this year could be highly destabilizing to the ruling party, especially if the ruling party’s candidate is an internationally wanted fugitive from justice. There are already signs that President Bashir views electoral success, at any cost, as a cornerstone of his effort to avoid accountability for war crimes.
* The Obama administration has a number of officials who have distinguished themselves for their past Sudan activism, including Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Vice President Joseph Biden, and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice. The level of commitment of these senior officials coupled with that of the president is of profound interest to all Sudanese, and provides an unprecedented point of leverage. By the same token, there will be genuine anger among activists if these individuals fail to translate a long record of tough rhetoric into reality.

This confluence of factors provides a real opening for peace in all of Sudan. But little progress will occur unless activists continue to generate a spotlight on the issue and push for a comprehensive solution from the Obama administration and Congress.
What the U.S. government should do

1. President Obama should immediately appoint a special envoy for peace in Sudan, provide the resources for a strong support team, and commit to doing all his administration can to bring about a peace deal for Darfur and implementation of the North-South deal: an all-Sudan solution.
2. President Obama and Congress should publicly support the International Criminal Court and its efforts to introduce accountability. This will have both an immediate and long-term impact for would-be genocidaires, demonstrating that the era of impunity is over.
3. The president and Congress should ensure that the protection of Darfur’s civilians, the unfettered delivery of humanitarian aid, and—ultimately—the return home of all Darfuris to their places of origin are daily priorities for the U.N. Security Council and troop contributing nations. If the United Nations is unwilling or unable to make civilian protection and the responsibility to protect a priority in Sudan, the Obama administration should work with a coalition of willing partners to ensure that these basic standards are met.
4. The United States should work with other nations to prepare a roadmap to peace, loaded with incentives and pressures that are mostly multilateral in nature.
5. The United States should prepare a credible range of options for the use of military force to protect civilians and ensure the unobstructed delivery of humanitarian assistance, both as a means to both save those now most vulnerable and as a leverage point for peace in Sudan.

What you can do

1. expulsion of humanitarian agencies from Sudan. You can email us their answers at advocacy@enoughproject.org and we will post the information to our blog.
2. You can also dial 1-800-GENOCIDE to reach your elected officials and demand the immediate appointment of a high-level special envoy for Sudan to lead U.S. efforts to bring peace and stability to the country.
3. Join the growing, permanent anti-genocide movement by signing up for action alerts from the following organizations:
o Enough Project: www.enoughproject.org
o Genocide Intervention Network: www.genocideintervention.net
o STAND: www.standnow.org
o Save Darfur Coalition: www.savedarfur.org
4. Recruit your friends and family to be involved in the movement.
5. “Enough Said,” the blog of the Enough Project, provides commentary on issues of genocide and conflict prevention
6. Check your elected officials’ Darfur Report Cards on www.darfurscores.org to assess what more they can be doing. Lobby your senator or member of Congress by arranging a meeting with their in-district offices.
7. Seek media coverage of local activist efforts or news from Sudan by writing op-eds or letters to the editor, calling local TV and radio stations, and inviting journalists to cover local events.
8. Support local divestment efforts. Visit http://www.sudandivestment.org/home.asp to learn more.
9. Join the Darfur Sister Schools Program at www.darfurdreamteam.org and link your school to a school from the Darfur refugee camps.
10. Set a Google alert for Sudan to stay informed.
11. Read the book Not on Our Watch by Don Cheadle and John Prendergast.
12. Have your class learn about the crisis in Darfur using the teaching unit developed by Facing History and Ourselves and the Enough Project at www.facinghistory.org/darfur-project.
13. Introduce a bible study resource that accompanies Not on Our Watch in your church: www.darfurchristianaction.org.

We know that ultimately the conflict in Sudan will be resolved because of the efforts of the Sudanese people, but the international community must help and provide those Sudanese fighting for peace with the political space they need to succeed. Our role as activists is to urge our leaders to invest in achieving peace for Sudan and to remind them that doing so is in the political and strategic interests of the United States. Conflict in Sudan is complex and will not be solved quickly or without sustained negotiations between multiple parties. We must resist the temptation to jump at overly simplistic or ineffective solutions and proceed with appropriate humility, but continue to act with the knowledge that our efforts as activists are a crucial component to achieving peace in Sudan.

 

UNITED NATIONS — A defiant President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan lambasted the West on Thursday for his indictment on war crimes charges stemming from the conflict in Darfur, while Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations and a raft of aid organizations denounced the decision to shut down some 13 relief agencies that Sudan accused of conspiring in the court case.

Addressing the throngs clogging Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, at a government-organized rally, Mr. Bashir called the International Criminal Court in The Hague a hangover from the worst days of colonialism and its indictment of him a naked grab for Sudanese resources like oil.

“Here in Sudan, we are a liberation movement against this new colonization and we are ready for any battle,” he said, stabbing the air with his walking stick while the crowd beneath the podium chanted “Down, down U.S.A.!” and burned in effigy the court’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo. “We defeated them before, and we will again.”

China joined the African Union and the Arab League in calling on the United Nations Security Council to use its powers to suspend the indictment for a year, lest it stymie peace talks between the government and the rebels in Darfur. “We don’t wish to see our previous efforts and achievements on the Darfur problem compromised by this kind of action,” Qin Gang, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, was quoted as saying in reports from Beijing.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, asked about the indictment while traveling in Europe, said that if Mr. Bashir believed that he was wrongly accused he could answer the charges in court. “He can certainly contest it,” Mrs. Clinton said.

Arab and African officials planned to send yet another joint delegation to the Security Council to plead their case for a deferral under Article 16 of the court’s statute, but that was considered unlikely given the Council’s sharp divisions.

Sudan’s decision to suspend operations of 13 aid organizations serving millions of people in Darfur on accusations that they provided false evidence to the court helped sour the mood toward Sudan. While Mr. Ban had issued what many diplomats and aid groups considered a tepid endorsement of the indictment on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, he and other senior United Nations officials underscored the possible fallout from closing the relief agencies.

If carried out, the decision will cause “irrevocable damage to humanitarian operations there,” said Michèle Montas, Mr. Ban’s spokeswoman, adding that the aid agencies “are key to maintaining a lifeline.” An estimated 2.5 million people have been chased from their homes in Darfur, a sprawling, semiarid province in western Sudan, and the United Nations says the conflict has contributed to 300,000 deaths.

The aid agencies affected, including the International Rescue Committee, CARE, Oxfam Great Britain, Save the Children and Doctors Without Borders, represent about 40 percent of the 6,500 international and local aid workers in Darfur, said Catherine Bragg, the deputy United Nations emergency relief coordinator.

The ouster of the groups would leave 1.1 million people without food, 1.1 million lacking health care, and more than 1 million without drinking water, she said, adding that it would be extremely difficult for the remaining agencies and the Sudanese government to fill the void. She also criticized the government for its aggressive behavior toward some aid workers, detaining them for several hours while Sudanese officials walked off with computers, cash and other assets.

The indictment from the International Criminal Court, which was formed in 2002 with the idea of creating a permanent venue to pursue the type of war criminals who had emerged in conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, was the first against a sitting head of state. Sudan called on the 30 members of the 53-member African Union who have joined the I.C.C. to withdraw, with the country’s United Nations ambassador, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem, saying the court represented “the same Euro-American justice that destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan and most recently Gaza.”

The United States, despite the popular impression in Sudan that it was behind the indictment, never joined the court, not least out of concern that its troops on foreign missions might be subject to its jurisdiction.

Legally, only the court’s 108 members are bound by its decisions, although the Security Council issued a specific resolution in 2005 ordering Sudan, which is not a member, to comply with the court. Critics, particularly in Africa, have questioned the validity of the court for singling out African leaders. But its defenders point out that three of the court’s four criminal investigations, involving Congo, the Central African Republic and Uganda, were brought by the governments of those countries themselves.

Political analysts suggest that Mr. Bashir is likely to be weakened by the arrest warrant, and that he is likely to try to counteract that by testing the solidarity of the international community.

The first test will probably emerge in Qatar at the end of this month, when Arab leaders hold their annual summit meeting. Mr. Abdalhaleem vowed that Mr. Bashir would attend.

The court has no real enforcement powers but can serve a prompt arrest order to any country where Mr. Bashir is traveling.

Neil MacFarquhar reported from the United Nations, and Marlise Simons from Paris.

The precarious peace between northern and southern Sudan stands at a crucial crossroads. Intended by its architects as the cornerstone of peace in a country fractured by conflict, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, has been hamstrung by the National Congress Party’s intransigence, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement’s growing pains, and the international community’s neglect. With two years remaining before a referendum on self-determination for the south, confidence in the CPA is diminishing, mistrust between the NCP and SPLM is mounting, and both sides are arming in preparation for a resumption of hostilities. The International Criminal Court’s, or ICC’s, forthcoming arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will further isolate the NCP and adds an additional layer of uncertainty to the CPA’s fate.1 U.S. leadership was instrumental in negotiating the CPA and could be pivotal in preventing a relapse into a full-scale war that would have grave humanitarian consequences and further destabilize an already volatile region. The Obama administration must revitalize U.S. support for CPA implementation, and develop a clear and comprehensive diplomatic strategy that encompasses both north-south issues and Darfur as the core of a renewed push for peace in Sudan.

Lasting peace or temporary pause?

The NCP and SPLM signed the CPA in January 2005 after 22 years of civil conflict that claimed an estimated 2 million lives and displaced more than 4 million people. Scorched earth tactics and divide-and-conquer strategies created a massive humanitarian catastrophe where famine was an instrument of war and civilians became either expendable pawns or heavily armed proxies. The government’s pursuit of a radical Islamic and overtly racist political agenda were major catalysts for the conflict, but the underlying cause lay in the concentration of power and privilege among a narrow stratum of northern elites who viewed the state as a means to extract resources and accumulate control over the sprawling state’s resource-rich periphery. As a result of this political marginalization and economic underdevelopment, deep-seated conflict took root in Sudan.

The CPA is a complicated, ambitious document that aims to create a sustainable peace by remedying these historical imbalances. Through an array of wealth and power-sharing arrangements mandated over the course of a six-year interim period, the CPA seeks to remold the skewed state and promote a political partnership between the NCP and SPLM, while offering the south a clear exit strategy if these terms are not met. The agreement created a new central governing body, the Government of National Unity, or GNU, and granted the south semiautonomous status administered by the Government of Southern Sudan, or GoSS. National elections are mandated to be held by July 2009, and the GoSS is required to receive 50 percent of all revenue from oil fields in southern Sudan. While the goal is to make unity attractive by giving the south an equitable stake in the state, the south can choose to become an independent nation through a referendum in 2011.

From the outset, the CPA has faced an uphill struggle. The death of SPLM/A head John Garang on July 30, 2005 in a helicopter crash was a major setback. Garang was a strong leader who formed personal bonds with key NCP leaders and their allies in the Arab world to create a climate of confidence that enabled negotiations to succeed. The sudden loss of Garang and the resulting scramble to fill the leadership void exposed old divisions in the south between those who favor his “New Sudan” strategy of unity and national transformation and those who prefer a “south first” strategy whose ultimate goal is independence. As the SPLM struggled to consolidate control over a vast territory emerging from decades of conflict with an ethnically diverse population and little infrastructure, it also had to reconcile its competing visions for the future.

Garang’s death altered Khartoum’s calculations and led the NCP to increasingly obstruct CPA implementation. The prospects for a NCP/SPLM national partnership were always tenuous, but they became even more problematic once the NCP concluded that Salva Kiir, the new GoSS president, was more committed to the path of independence than to Garang’s “New Sudan.” The NCP rejected the findings of a commission set up to determine the border of Abyei, a politically sensitive, oil-producing flashpoint along the fault line between north and south.2 The NCP also withheld funding for a national census and demarcation of the north-south border, delaying crucial CPA benchmarks that impact oil revenue sharing, national elections, and the self-determination referendum. Both the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, or SPLA, and Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF, were slow to redeploy their forces, leaving large concentrations of troops in close proximity along hotly contested border areas despite a ceasefire.

The international community has been slow to respond to the sputtering pace of implementation
and the NCP’s attempts to undermine the CPA. The genocide in Darfur diverted international focus and funds away from implementation of the agreement. Eager to gain humanitarian access and stop the slaughter in Darfur, international actors became less willing to press the NCP to fulfill its CPA commitments. (This is sadly ironic given that the conflict in Darfur stems from many of the exact same causes as the earlier north-south civil war, and has been prosecuted by Khartoum using many of the same brutal strategies). The Bush administration,
which had played a lead role during negotiations, was unable to harmonize competing objectives in Sudan: implementing the CPA, managing the genocide in Darfur, and maintaining
its close ties with the Sudanese government on intelligence sharing and counterterrorism.
As a result, U.S. attention to the CPA has flagged during the interim period. The U. N. Security Council also lost capital and leverage as a credible international guarantor by failing to follow through on threatened sanctions against the NCP for repeated violations in Darfur. Emboldened by the example set in Darfur, the NCP saw little risk in obstructing implementation of any CPA provisions that did not serve their political interests. Constrained by a narrow mandate and limited capacity, the 10,000-strong United Nations Mission to Sudan, or UNMIS, has often been relegated to the role of a spectator.

After four years of fragmentary implementation of the agreement, the situation on the ground remains fragile. In May, clashes between SAF and SPLA in Abyei killed 89 people and displaced 50,000, raising fears that the delicate peace would not hold.3 Determination of the Abyei border has been referred for international arbitration, but sporadic violence prevents the majority of civilians from returning, military tensions remain high, and UNMIS continues to be subject to freedom of movement restrictions imposed by the SAF that severely curtail its ability to monitor troop activities north of Abyei. Both sides are building up their forces along the border and devoting increasing amounts of their budgets to military rearmament. Efforts by the GoSS to purchase 100 refurbished tanks came to public light after a third of these tanks were seized by pirates operating off the coast of Somalia. Declining world prices and diminishing oil revenues have had a considerable impact on budgets already strained to deliver development and meet increased military expenditures. Oil revenue accounts for 97 percent of the south’s budget and 50 percent of the north’s budget. As the pool of oil profits shrinks, competition for control over oilfields will likely intensify.

Additionally, Omar al-Bashir, the NCP leader and president of the GNU, has responded to the issuance of a potential arrest warrant by the ICC for his actions in Darfur with blustering threats that have sparked concern about the impact on security and CPA implementation. The Lords Resistance Army, a brutal Ugandan rebel group with a long history of serving as a SAF proxy, has resumed attacks in Western Equatoria State following the breakdown of peace negotiations and the launch of a regional military campaign to capture Joseph Kony, the rebel commander indicted by the ICC.4 The proliferation of small arms in southern Sudan continues to fuel widespread local violence among pastoralists competing for resources and power that has not been reduced by GoSS-initiated civilian disarmament campaigns.

With the elections and referendum looming on the horizon, difficult decisions can no longer be delayed. The next two years set out a compressed agenda of highly contentious, interrelated issues that leave little room for maneuver. Although the Border Committee was scheduled to submit its report in November 2008, disagreements over the boundary between White Nile and Upper Nile have prevented consensus on the findings and pushed back demarcation. The census results are expected in early 2009, but some southern leaders have already stated that the outcome will be rejected unless it is determined that the south comprises at least 30 percent of Sudan’s total population. Rejection of the census would be another setback for national elections, which have already slipped past schedule due to the daunting logistics and delays in passing enabling legislation. Flawed or failed elections could provide a convenient rationale for either or both sides to repudiate the CPA and resume hostilities. Continued uncertainty about the census and border demarcation not only complicates elections and oil revenue sharing, but it will also begin to cast a shadow over the referendum unless progress is made soon. While the parties have muddled through four years of uneven implementation, failure to hold a credible referendum on schedule could potentially sound the death knell for the CPA and spark a new war.

Action plan for the Obama administration

The CPA is not a lost cause. However, it badly needs the international community to provide focused support, in the form of both incentives and pressure, to send a clear and consistent message that full implementation of the agreement is the essential foundation for peace in Sudan. Over the next two years a range of issues—including elections, border demarcation, the ICC, Abyei, and the referendum—will all test the resolve of the parties and the strength of the agreement. A fresh infusion of international commitment is needed to help navigate these challenges or the CPA may become a missed opportunity, with tragic consequences for Sudan and the region. Just as U.S. leadership was crucial in brokering the CPA, U.S. engagement carried out in concert with its multilateral partners will be central in bolstering the agreement’s chances for success.

A reinvigorated strategy to build peace in Sudan should be grounded by three central policy pillars:

Reprioritize CPA implementation as part of a comprehensive approach to ending Sudan’s conflicts

Sudan’s vast landscape features a seething genocide in Darfur, smoldering tensions in eastern Sudan, Southern Kordofan, and Northern State, and a shaky peace between the north and south. Diplomatic initiatives have tended to compartmentalize Sudan’s myriad conflicts, essentially falling victim to Khartoum’s familiar ‘divide and rule’ strategy. By diffusing and distracting international focus, the ruling regime has been able to tighten its reign on power without making systemic changes to the structure of the state. However, U.S. policy must be shaped by the fact that these complex conflicts have a common core: flawed governance by a center that exploits and marginalizes an underdeveloped periphery. Not only does the CPA provide a roadmap for resolving the longest and bloodiest of these conflicts, but it also offers a framework for the kind of democratic, structural transformation necessary to alter the root cause of Sudan’s many recurring conflicts.

Focus on both the short- and long-term

The overriding policy objective of too many in the international community seems to be to limp toward 2011 by preventing a premature collapse of the CPA and accomplishing the bare minimum necessary to stamp the referendum as free and fair. Since there are so many hurdles to be cleared in the short term and foreign governments are sensitive to prejudge the referendum’s results, there has been very little focus during the interim period on long-term policy planning. With the referendum drawing nearer, this myopic complacency about the potential scenarios and likely risks moving forward is no longer sustainable.

Narrowly focusing on reaching the referendum neglects key dynamics. First, regardless of the referendum results, both northern and southern Sudan will be mutually dependent for the foreseeable future on the oil that straddles their shared border. Even if the south opts for independence and controls most oilfields, the only available pipeline and refining capacity at this time are in the North. Water, infrastructure, migratory populations, and security will also continue to create shared issues of common concern. Second, marginalized northerners who fought alongside the SPLM in the war do not have the option of voting in a referendum. These areas, including South Kordofan and Southern Blue Nile, are reliant on the CPA’s wealth and power-sharing provisions to stimulate inclusion, development, and peace. Third, the worsening crisis in Darfur and the unpredictable consequences of the forthcoming ICC arrest warrant against President al-Bashir directly affect the calculations of both sides and could potentially lead to an open split within the NCP. Finally, after four years the CPA has not forged a partnership between the NCP and SPLM or made unity more attractive for the south. While the ultimate outcome of the referendum will be influenced by how issues like the border, elections, Abyei, and oil transparency are resolved, the south would likely vote overwhelming for independence were the referendum held today. In short, if the United States and its allies do not get the CPA back on track, they could face a new civil war in Sudan and the violent dissolution of Sudan as a state.

Actively engage in Sudan through a combination of strong leadership and multilateral collaboration with international partners

The United States does not need to shoulder the burden alone. The CPA was the result of a regional mediation framework reinforced by robust commitments from international partners such as the United Kingdom, Italy, and Norway. This equation provided a formula for success during negotiations and could be reconstituted. Similarly, the United Nations Security Council and UNMIS provide a platform for ensuring CPA implementation and protecting vulnerable civilian populations. As one of the integral guarantors of the CPA, the United States should spearhead a multilateral, multitrack international initiative to help see the agreement through its next critical phase.

In support of these principles, several actions should be taken:

* Encourage negotiations between the NCP and SPLM on a long-term wealth sharing agreement. While shrinking reserves and falling prices might ultimately wean Sudan off oil revenue dependency by forcing broader economic diversification, the north and south will have to find a mutually beneficial framework for developing the oilfields along their border in the meantime. Disentangling the issues of land and oil by negotiating a long-term wealth-sharing arrangement could ease tensions over border demarcation, generate momentum for further cooperation, and ensure that the referendum is not a zero-sum game with high probability for conflict.

* Expand efforts to deliver a peace dividend. Progress has been slow in providing education, health services, access to water, and basic infrastructure to the peripheral areas of Sudan. Although the overall situation has improved since the end of the war, insecurity and underdevelopment remains a fact of life for most Sudanese. As long as that is the case, the GoSS will have difficulty consolidating the peace and holding together an ethnically divided south with competing political visions. Corruption and the general lack of trained administrators within the GoSS further stifle growth and fuel popular discontent.

* Enhance efforts to professionalize and modernize the SPLA. The SPLA has struggled to transition from a guerilla movement to a formal army, a process complicated by attempts to integrate southern militias that opposed the SPLA during the war. To ensure that the south is stabile and the GoSS can deliver a peace dividend, the SPLA must continue to modernize through a well-supported process of security sector transformation that improves discipline, command and control, capacity, and competency. Toward this end, the Obama administration should explore the sale of an air defense system to the GoSS. Although introducing new weapons systems into a volatile military environment could be interpreted as contrary to donors’ responsibility to make unity attractive, it is in the interests of lasting stability that the GoSS spend money on defense wisely. Unlike the aforementioned refurbished tanks, an air defense is non-offensive and helps level the playing field by neutralizing the north’s major tactical advantage in the event of renewed hostilities.

* Support efforts to neutralize the SAF’s preferred war tactic of arming and supporting proxy militias against its enemies. Over the course of the war, the government supported many proxy militias against the SPLA, including the Southern Sudan Defense Forces, or SSDF; the Popular Defense Forces, or PDF; the “white army”; the Murahaleen militias; and, most pressingly, the LRA. There will be no peace dividend without security, and the LRA are a brutal, blunt-edged tool that may well undermine elections and the referendum over the next two years if left unchecked. Although the ongoing military operation against the LRA was poorly planned and provided inadequate protection to vulnerable civilians, it does provide a window of opportunity to decisively defuse the LRA threat. The United States could provide logistical and intelligence support to improve civilian protection and help remove a CPA spoiler that also presents a threat to regional stability. Strategic efforts to apprehend the LRA’s leadership and deliver them to international justice would also provide an important boost to accountability in the region. To reduce the threat of other potential proxy militias, UNMIS must increase its capacity to monitor weapons flows and the GoSS must work with its partners, including the United States, to ensure full integration of the SSDF and others into its own armed forces.

* Name a special envoy. U.S. diplomatic efforts require a high-level focal point to directly engage the parties and send a strong message of U.S. commitment to building peace in Sudan. The Obama administration should move rapidly to name a special envoy who is supported by two deputies: one focused full-time on promoting CPA implementation and the other on achieving a peace deal for Darfur consistent with the CPA.

* Work with the U.N. Security Council to ensure that UNMIS has the necessary capacity to fulfill its mandate and protect civilians. The May clashes in Abyei and the resulting displacement of 50,000 people reinforced concerns about UNMIS’s capacity to monitor threats to the CPA, reduce tensions before they escalate into violence, and protect civilians in imminent threat of danger. UNMIS must be able to effectively monitor the areas around Abyei and could prevent further clashes by helping negotiate a demilitarized zone along the border and in key flashpoints. Both the elections and referendum also carry a high risk of violence that will test UNMIS’s capability and will to act as a guarantor of the agreement’s implementation. The United States should lead efforts within the Security Council to strengthen UNMIS’s ability to support the CPA.

* Oppose any effort within the Security Council to suspend the ICC’s investigation in Darfur that is not tied to tangible peace and justice guarantees. Ending impunity for grave human rights violations is an important step in breaking the cycle of conflict and building a sustainable peace in all of Sudan. Anticipating arrest warrants at any moment, President Bashir is attempting to avoid accountability and ensure the survival of his regime by using the threat of violence to hold the ICC’s investigation hostage. However, the ICC’s investigation has created leverage for a just peace in Darfur and an opening for party pragmatists to jettison Bashir as a leader with too many liabilities. In light of Bashir’s lack of credibility and the NCP’s long legacy of crimes, an Article 16 deferral of the ICC’s investigation by the Security Council could only be appropriate if it is linked to a credible, alternative accountability program acceptable to Darfuris, demonstrated progress toward full implementation of the CPA, and the wholesale return of Darfuri refugees and internally displaced in an environment of security, peace, and reconstruction overseen by a credible U.N. peacekeeping force.

Endnotes
1 See Enough’s recent strategy paper on the impact of the ICC arrest warrant, “What the Warrant Means: Justice, Peace, and the Key Actors in Sudan” (February 2008), available at http://www.enoughproject.org/publications/what-warrant-means-justice-peace-and-key-actors-sudan.
2 Enough has done extensive reporting and analysis on the crisis in Abyei. For a background on Abyei, see Roger Winter, “Abyei: Sudan’s Kashmir” (January
2008), available at http://www.enoughproject.org/publications/abyei-sudan%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Ckashmir%E2%80%9D.
3 For an eyewitness account of the devastation in Abyei, see Roger Winter, “Abyei Aflame: An Update from the Field” (May 2008), available at http://www.enoughproject.org/publications/abyei-sudan%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Ckashmir%E2%80%9D.
4 See Enough’s recent statement on the LRA, “No Excuses: The End of the Lord’s Resistance Army is in Sight” (January 2009), available at http://www.enoughproject.org/publications/no-excuses-end-lord%E2%80%99s-resistance-army-sight.

The issuance of an arrest warrant for Sudan’s sitting head of state for crimes against humanity offers the Obama administration a chance to catalyze multilateral efforts to bring about a solution to Sudan’s decades-long cycle of warfare. One of the crucial missing ingredients to conflict resolution efforts has been some form of accountability for the horrific crimes against humanity that have been perpetrated by the warring parties in Sudan, primarily the Khartoum regime. Peace without justice in Sudan would only bring an illusion of stability without addressing the primary forces driving the conflict.

The decision by the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court, or ICC, to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is unsurprising given the long pattern of profound abuses in Sudan directed from the highest echelons of government. Over the past several weeks, President Bashir has escalated violence in Darfur and increased human rights violations in Khartoum in a last-ditch effort to force the United Nations Security Council to defer the ICC’s investigation for one year “in the interest of peace.”1 However, as Enough argued when ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo requested the warrant in July 2008, the prior indictments of former Liberian President Charles Taylor and former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic demonstrate that the pursuit of justice can be a catalyst for peace—if the international community stands resolutely behind efforts to promote accountability for genocide and crimes against humanity.2 The situation in Sudan is no different. Senior officials within Bashir’s National Congress Party, or NCP, are deeply concerned about the possibility of further charges by the ICC, and a growing fissure between Bashir’s loyalists and potentially more pragmatic elements of the NCP could lead to the president’s removal.

To ensure that any potential leadership change within the regime will actually produce meaningful movement toward peace on the ground, the international community must fashion a firm and coordinated peace strategy conditioned on actions rather than words and policies rather than personalities. What should be clear to the international community, including the United States, is that President Bashir should be delivered to the court to face a fair trial on the charges against him. Furthermore, the international community needs to use multilateral diplomacy, well targeted pressures, and judicious incentives to bring both the NCP and Darfur’s rebel groups to the negotiating table, while making a major effort to revitalize the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, as part of a broader and more strategic peace effort for all of Sudan.

How the warrant affects the key actors in Sudan

Sudan is teetering on a dangerous precipice: Violence in Darfur is escalating and CPA implementation is faltering. An NCP-backed coup attempt in neighboring Chad seems increasingly likely. (Rebels supported by Khartoum have reached the capital N’Djamena twice already, in 2006 and 2008). The response of key actors in Sudan to the ICC’s move against Bashir is still obviously a work in progress, but the choices made in the coming weeks by the NCP, as well as the main rebel groups in Darfur, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM, will have profound impact on the country’s future. Understanding the calculations of these actors is fundamental to leveraging the arrest warrant into progress toward peace.

The National Congress Party

Sudan’s ruling NCP has faced substantial pressures both from within and without in anticipation of the warrant against Bashir. Internally, Bashir and his loyalists face growing opposition from a group led by Sudan’s Second Vice President Ali Osman Taha, its intelligence chief Salah Abdullah Gosh, and its energy minister Dr. Awad al-Jaz. Tensions between the two camps have been mounting for months, and Gosh blames Bashir and his senior advisor Nafie Ali Nafie for Sudan’s increasing international isolation.

With the warrant now out in the open, this jostling between these two main factions will likely intensify and could split the party. Although Bashir, an army general, still commands loyalty within the regular armed forces, this rival alliance is represented by powerful actors in Sudan’s political, security, and economic sectors. Taha and Gosh bear significant responsibility for crimes against humanity committed during the regime’s 20-year rule, yet they have shown willingness to work with the international community. Taha was the NCP’s point person in negotiating the CPA, and Gosh has become the United States’ favored interlocutor on counterterrorism. Within a ruling party increasingly focused on its own survival, Bashir may become a sacrificial lamb for a party in search of more pragmatic leadership.

Externally, Bashir’s efforts to force a deferral of the ICC investigation have run aground, and the new Obama administration has already raised the possibility of additional punitive measures against the regime. The African Union, the Arab League, and China have all maintained vocal support for a deferral, but the United States’ outspoken opposition has effectively neutralized these efforts.

Furthermore, the recent government attacks in Darfur have made it difficult for even some of Bashir’s most loyal allies to use their typical arguments while seeking to defer justice. In the weeks leading up to the arrest warrant, some of the regime’s most stalwart allies already began distancing themselves from Khartoum. Most important is Egypt, which for years used its influence in the Arab League to rally support for Bashir’s government. However, relations between the two countries have cooled since Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met Bashir in Khartoum in November 2008. According to Sudanese officials, Mubarak called Bashir to task for failing to implement the CPA and for driving the South toward independence, a situation that would complicate maintaining the uninterrupted flow of the Nile River, Egypt’s main interest in Sudan. Mubarak also voiced concerns that the Sudanese Islamist movement is the gravest security threat in the region, and blamed the Sudanese government for instability in Chad, and the continued predations of the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA. If Egypt expresses a willingness to accept new leadership in Khartoum, other allies in the Arab world will likely follow suit, further weakening Bashir’s internal position.

Given these internal and external pressures as well as the regime’s historic patterns of behavior, there are three likely scenarios for how the NCP will react to the indictment:

Scenario one—President Bashir opts for confrontation with the international community: By intensifying the aggressive crackdown in Darfur that he began in Muhajiriya in advance of the warrant, increasing aerial bombardments of civilians, restricting or expelling humanitarians and peacekeepers, stepping up support for Chadian rebels, threatening to withdraw from the CPA, or backtracking on counterterrorism cooperation, Bashir could force the international community to take more assertive action or back down. At the same time, Bashir could work internally to assert firm control of the NCP by jailing opponents, imposing martial law, and increasing military presence in Khartoum and elsewhere. While many humanitarians and U.N. officials have expressed deep concerns about this scenario, it is important to note that such maximalist behavior by Bashir would only serve to further galvanize international support for decisive action against his government.

Scenario two—Internal pressure forces Bashir from office: Given the mounting pressure from within, Bashir could decide to peacefully step aside and cede control to a new NCP candidate, who would participate in the upcoming national elections. Alternatively, rivals within the party could attempt to take power by force. Salah Gosh is one of the strongest advocates for removing Bashir, and Sudan is no stranger to coup d’états. However, Bashir has reportedly told Gosh that he may step down if the divisions within the NCP become irreconcilable. Some Sudanese officials have cited the possibility of exile in Saudi Arabia, which is not a party to the ICC. The new leadership of the NCP could then adopt a more pragmatic approach to the international community by negotiating an end to the war in Darfur and recommitting itself—although unenthusiastically—to the CPA. Bashir’s peaceful departure would undoubtedly be in the best interests of the NCP and the country as a whole, but some Bashir loyalists have threatened to kill Vice President Ali Osman Taha if any attempt is made to remove Bashir from power. Here again, it is important to note that after charges were brought against both Charles Taylor and Slobodan Milosevic much was made of the fact that there was no clear mechanism to deliver them to The Hague—yet that is exactly where both men eventually found themselves. This was in large part because in both cases loyalists recognized the increasingly steep cost of resisting international norms on an issue as fundamental as crimes against humanity.

Scenario three—Bashir stalls for time: After years of what the new U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice calls “bluster and retreat,” by the international community, Bashir may well calculate that the pressure arising from the arrest warrant will eventually dissipate. The NCP has weathered heavy external pressure in the past and survived by exploiting the inherent divisions in the international community. It may be entirely possible that Bashir, rather than take dramatic action in response to the warrant, will bide his time, and commit the bulk of his energy and resources to facing internal challenges.

The Darfur rebel groups

Bashir’s indictment fundamentally alters the context for Darfur’s rebel groups, presenting a rare opportunity for the more politically savvy groups in the region to gain some legitimacy at the expense of the regime. Darfur’s most significant rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement, or JEM, supports the issuance of an arrest warrant. At the same time, however, Mr. Ocampo is pursuing cases against the rebels, and the leaders of the JEM and the various factions of the Sudan Liberation Army, or SLA, have to weigh their support of a warrant for Bashir against the possibility that they are potentially subject to a similar fate.

Given the JEM’s dominant military and political status vis-à-vis the other rebel groups, its response to the warrant will strongly influence other rebels. The JEM’s recent behavior—renewed military offensives, bellicose threats against the government, and overtures to the international community—suggests that the rebels are keeping their options open. Although the JEM took control of Muhajiriya, South Darfur, by force in late January, the rebels withdrew when Khartoum requested that peacekeepers from the joint United Nations/African Union mission, or UNAMID, leave the area and threatened to level the town. Afterward, JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim met in the Chadian capital N’Djamena with a senior UNAMID official and stated that the JEM is “willing to establish a working relationship with UNAMID for the protection of civilians.”3

The JEM’s gesture toward UNAMID, a recent JEM visit to the United States (at the invitation of the outgoing Bush administration), and its decision to participate in “talks about talks” in Qatar suggest a broad effort to present itself as a credible political actor. However, the JEM continues to warn of greater military action down the road, including another attack on Khartoum if Bashir’s indictment leads to “chaos.”4 Although government forces routed the rebels when they attacked the Khartoum suburb of Omdurman last May, the JEM could seek to rally support for a new offensive meant to remove a president charged with war crimes from power. Provoking a heavy-handed response from the Sudanese government could also be a way to force external actors—particularly the United States—to increase pressure on the regime and potentially take military action to protect civilians against wholesale casualties. Generating a threat of force from the international community to buttress one’s own strength is nothing new: The Kosovo Liberation Army used this tactic to great effect during the run-up to NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999.

The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement

The SPLM is largely in reactive mode, and senior officials within the party disagree on the possible effect of the arrest warrant. Salva Kiir, the president of the Government of Southern Sudan and Sudan’s first vice president in the national unity government, is deeply concerned that Bashir’s indictment signals the end of the CPA. Other SPLM officials are optimistic that second Vice President Ali Osman Taha will remove Bashir and recommit the NCP to CPA implementation. Taha’s influence has diminished since the death of SPLM leader John Garang, and the NCP has sought to undermine CPA implementation. Yet many within the SPLM believe that Taha understands the importance of the CPA to the survival of his party, and that he will make some sacrifices—as he did while negotiating the CPA—to keep the deal on track. If Bashir were to step down, the new NCP leadership would have to work with the SPLM to reorganize the government of national unity, which an interim president would lead until elections and the formation of a new government.

Next steps for the Obama administration

Although no one can accurately predict how various actors in Sudan will respond to the warrant for Bashir, the international community, including the Obama administration can—through effective multilateral diplomacy, a willingness to call Bashir’s bluff, and practical steps to increase pressure on Khartoum in pursuit of a comprehensive peace deal that includes both Darfur and revitalized CPA implementation—make the pursuit of peace the most attractive option for the NCP and Darfur’s rebel groups. The Obama administration’s response to the immediate challenge posed by the warrant should take into account the calculations and possible scenarios discussed above, but it should also flow from answers to broader and more strategic questions: What is the end game? What is the overall strategic goal? And what level of force is the administration and its allies willing to use, if the Sudanese government chooses to escalate confrontation? Answering these big picture questions up front is fundamental since many of the tactical responses to the situation on the ground and arrest warrant could inexorably lead to a much higher stakes game.

A comprehensive policy approach to Sudan must include several components:

* Consistent high-level diplomacy: Given the scale and complexity of the crisis in Sudan, the president should appoint a special envoy to serve as the United States’ point person on Sudan policy and lead U.S. efforts to forge a multilateral coalition that supports more robust measures to help end the war in Darfur and ensure full implementation of the CPA. This envoy must have direct access to President Obama, and appropriate staff and resources, including authority over the State Department’s Sudan Programs Group. This envoy would need a dedicated team and sufficient resources to carry out his or her work.
* Firm messaging to the NCP: Messages should be conveyed to the key actors within the NCP both publicly and privately. In terms of public messages, the administration should make it clear that it fully supports justice and accountability for Darfur’s genocide, and will not tolerate any obstruction of aid efforts, deployment of UNAMID, or implementation of the CPA. There will be consequences for such actions that will directly affect the leadership of those entities party to the conflict. Behind-the-scenes, the United States must make clear that continued attacks on civilians or peacekeepers, the anticipated proxy coup attempt in Chad, or efforts to cut off humanitarian aid will be viewed as a major escalation of hostilities by Khartoum and will be treated as such by Washington and its allies. Any credible peace effort will demand an unconditional ceasefire and a peace deal in Darfur that includes accountability mechanisms broadly acceptable to Darfuri citizens, real movement on CPA implementation, and the demonstrable return of large numbers of Darfuri IDPs and refugees to a secure environment.
* Firm messaging to the rebels: The Obama administration should make clear to Darfur’s rebel groups that it and the international community will apply a common set of standards to all sides of the Darfur conflict. The U.S. envoy should make clear to JEM and others that the international community will hold rebels accountable for crimes against humanity and that attempts to provoke external intervention will be met with consequences.
* Contingency planning: The Obama administration must take steps to detach humanitarian and peacekeeping operations from dependence on Khartoum. Contingency plans should be established to reposition all non-life-saving personnel, and to provide life- saving programs in non-permissive environments. The United States should consider providing air assets and logistical support to facilitate these steps if needed, and Washington’s allies should consider similar measures. Too often, UNAMID has been left in the position of pleading with the Sudanese government and rebels not to be a target of attacks. UNAMID should be in a position to respond with decisive force to provocations from any side and to effectively protect civilians. Until it can meet those basic standards, it cannot be considered an effective peacekeeping mission.
* Clear consequences: The international community should establish clear consequences if Sudan fails to deliver Bashir to justice. These measures should include rapid escalation of targeted sanctions, an expanded arms embargo, imposition of an oil blockade on Port Sudan, and targeted airstrikes against air assets used by the regime for offensive military operations, with escalating strikes against military and government installations if there is continued intransigence. To that end, the Obama administration should task Pentagon and NATO planners with developing options for a multinational force to carry out the military options outlined above. Such a force could also temporarily buttress UNAMID by providing the robust command-and-control capabilities UNAMID currently lacks and badly needs.
* Direct diplomacy with the SPLM: Although more robust measures aimed at Khartoum carry risks to the CPA, the United States ought to reaffirm its commitment to southern self-determination and take advantage of the SPLM’s role in the national unity government to encourage more pragmatic elements within the NCP to step forward.
* Deeper engagement with China: The Obama administration should engage more deeply with the Chinese to make clear that the U.S. goal in Sudan is stability and lasting peace—goals which Beijing should also support and which the two countries could work together to secure. An American envoy should invite closer collaboration between the United States and China in support of Darfur peace and CPA implementation. Bashir is increasingly an obstacle to those goals and his behavior risks creating more danger and instability for the international community.

An historic choice

The situation in Darfur is changing daily, and it is impossible to predict what will occur in the immediate post-warrant period within the ranks of the NCP and among the key rebel factions. One thing, however, is certain: This is a moment of opportunity during which the United States has a crucially important choice to make. It can help lead the international community in the pursuit of a credible and strategic approach to peace and justice, or it can let the situation worsen absent serious pressure from outside actors. Now is the time for the Obama administration to follow through on its promises to end the crisis in Darfur and lead international efforts toward a peaceful future in Sudan.

Endnotes

1 Article 16 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court provides that “[n]o investigation or prosecution may be commenced or proceeded with under this Statute for a period of 12 months after the Security Council, in a resolution adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, has requested the Court to that effect; that request may be renewed by the Council under the same conditions.” The Sudanese government so far has failed in getting Security Council support for a 12-month suspension of the investigation, in large part because of the dismal situation on the ground in Darfur and the government’s lack of seriousness in addressing the peace process.
2 See Enough’s strategy paper by John Norris, John Prendergast, and David Sullivan, “The Merits of Justice” (July 2008).
3 See ReliefWeb, “UNAMID JSR Adada meets with JEM Chairman in N’Djamena, Chad,” February 5, 2009.
4 See “Darfur JEM claims free reign in the region, warns government,” Sudan Tribune, January 31, 2009

Executive Summary

Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed in 2005, ending two decades of war between Sudan’s central government and the Southern-based Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army. The CPA shares wealth and power between Sudan’s powerful centre, a newly autonomous South, and Sudan’s other vast, diverse, impoverished peripheries. The bold peace gave new legitimacy to the two parties, who agreed to face their first competitive elections in 2009. Southern Sudan will have a referendum on self-determination in 2011.

Four years into the CPA’s six-year interim period, the ceasefire holds. A new Government of Southern Sudan is financed from Sudan’s oil wealth. At the centre, former adversaries share power in a Government of National Unity. But the CPA’s flaws are now conspicuous. It was an
exclusive bilateral deal between the country’s biggest military-political groups. Elections should include excluded groups, but stalled progress on election planning and restrictions on constitutional freedoms have limited expectations of the vote. Ambitious plans to invest in the
impoverished periphery have not created tangible changes. National reconciliation has been shelved. And the violence in Darfur has not been resolved.

The Darfur crisis has diverted the attention of the CPA’s many international sponsors and led to perceptions that their commitment is an inadequate guarantee. The two parties have instead sought military guarantees to preserve gains, using oil wealth to build armies. Delays in implementing preconditions for the elections – such as a census and the demarcation of the North–South border – have bunched together complex processes at the end of the
interim period.

If the troubled relationship between Sudan’s powerful centre and its periphery is not resolved, the South can opt out of Sudan. The referendum is becoming the agreement’s centrepiece. Peripheral areas of Northern Sudan, however, have no opt-out. If the agreement fails to create a fairer Sudan they will have to negotiate new relationships with the powerful centre. For two decades, the governing National Congress Party (NCP) aggravated the contradictions of the peripheries tomobilize for war in the South. At the centre, it swept away traditional parties that had managed neglected margins without violence, and had given Northern Sudan a kind of cultural coherence that has been replaced with embattled, often violent, ethnically
constructed regional groupings.

The CPA’s prescriptions for a fairer Sudan could still arrest trends towards fragmentation. But the possibilities for political progress are shifting away from the agreement’s thoughtfully constructed institutions. The crisis in Darfur and the possible indictment of the President, Omar al-Bashir, by an international court have forced the governing party to re-examine domestic alliances and consider previously unpalatable deals, outside CPA processes.

Failure now could lead to the sort of breakdown seen in Darfur, and time and opportunities are running out. But international commitment to the CPA can help carry the peace past the 2011 referendum, and help spread it to Darfur and all of Sudan. Progress on the agreement’s prescriptions for the fairer division of power and wealth in Sudan in the remaining thirty months of the interim period will create resources for Sudan’s future, while reverses now will impose heavy future costs. The main conclusions of this report are:

* International supporters of the CPA need to recommit urgently and thoughtfully to help secure its implementation across the whole of Sudan. To succeed, they need to work multilaterally, and they must understand and exploit the unavoidable connection between progress on the CPA and progress in Darfur.
* Neglected provisions of the CPA, such as land reform, local development and reconciliation, need to be addressed for peace to work in Darfur and in regions of emerging conflict.
* The SPLM needs to take elections seriously, promote stability and democracy in Northern Sudan, and fully engage with peace processes between the central government, Darfur and other peripheral areas of Northern Sudan.
* President Omar al-Bashir’s NCP is prepared to make changes in order to survive. These changes must reduce the tensions between the centre and the periphery, and to do this they must address the need for a fairer division of wealth and power. International supporters of the CPA should mobilize their diplomatic resources to encourage the NCP to align its interests with the wealth- and power-sharing processes of the CPA.
* Civil actors excluded from the CPA’s drafting need to be included in the electoral process. Fair, competitive elections are a key process for inclusion – and the international community must work to address the many obstacles facing those elections.
* The international community needs to recognize the serious risks that civilians will face if Sudan’s ambitious project for peace fails, and make clear how it will respond.
* The international community has specific roles: monitoring CPA outcomes in daily life; making clearer political judgments about CPA implementation; disseminating information; and explaining clearly what it can do to protect civilians.

Outline of the report

This report is divided into four sections. The Introduction sets out the main provisions of the CPA and briefly assesses progress on these provisions. The second section highlights some of the main issues in the drafting and implementation of the CPA. The third section looks at existing trends towards fragmentation in Sudan, and tries to assess how they will play out in the next few years. The final section contains recommendations for international supporters of the CPA. One of the report’s main assumptions is that conflicts in Sudan arise from an unbalanced relationship between the centre and many of its peripheries. The report focuses on three or four areas of current or former conflict in Southern Sudan, Southern Kordofan and Darfur. There are important lessons to draw from conflicts and peace processes in other areas,
such as Eastern Sudan, Blue Nile and parts of the Northern Nile Valley affected by dams. Rather than giving a tally of progress in these different peripheries, the report focuses on the often overlooked problem of the centre.

Click here to download the full report

Jan 29, 2009

It is conventional wisdom among diplomats, journalists, and analysts that Darfur’s rebel groups are hopelessly fractured into scores of rival factions, most of which are little more than clusters of bandits who opportunistically profit from lawlessness and chaos that has resulted from the war. At a recent event in Washington, D.C., a former White House special envoy for Sudan claimed that there are “dozens of independent groups operating in Darfur.” While this may have been true for a period of time, this narrative of an irreparably fragmented rebellion is music to the ears of the Sudanese government, its supporters, and those pundits who seek to find moral equivalency between the Sudanese government and Darfur’s rebels. The facts on the ground tell a different story. While there are certainly divisions among the various rebel factions in Darfur, only four groups are relevant to peace negotiations, and the differences between them owe more to personal and ethnic rivalries than substantive disagreements over the issues central to most Darfuris.

This paper identifies key rebel groups, and explains what they represent, what divides them, and—most importantly—what could potentially unite them if a credible, sustained, and internationally backed peace effort was put in place. Based on the Enough Project’s regular and extensive contacts with key rebel officials, our strongly held view is that Darfur’s rebels largely agree on the basic issues that must be addressed in order to bring about peace in Darfur. These issues are: political empowerment, security guarantees, and restitution and post-conflict support for the victims of this conflict. Moreover, these core demands are consistent with those of Darfur’s citizens, as represented by civil society groups, women’s coalitions, and Diaspora organizations. As the U.N./AU mediation begins to circulate a framework agreement for Darfur, it can blunt the divisions amongst the major rebel groups by establishing an inclusive negotiation structure that involves Darfur civil society groups and by focusing negotiations on these shared core demands.

The Major Players Among the Rebel Groups

The rebellion in Darfur has never been cohesive, but the decision by one rebel faction to sign a peace agreement with the government—the 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement, or DPA—significantly exacerbated pre-existing divisions, causing the rebels to splinter into a dizzying number of factions in the weeks and months that followed. To no one’s surprise, a joint U.N./AU effort to hold new peace negotiations in Sirte, Libya, in November 2007 never got off the ground. Many rebel factions refused to participate and those that did had negligible military or political strength. In the past year, however, a single dominant rebel group has emerged, along with three smaller but important factions.

The most dominant rebel group currently in Darfur is the Justice and Equality Movement, or JEM. The other three important entities are factions of the Sudan Liberation Movement, or SLA. The SLA and the JEM were the two rebel groups that launched the initial rebellion against the Sudanese government in 2003. Both movements voiced frustration over decades of political and economic marginalization of Darfur by the central government in Khartoum. Yet there are critical structural differences between the two movements. The JEM has always had a centralized leadership structure, while the SLA began as a fragile alliance of rival leaders with strong ties to their home regions and ethnic groups. While the JEM has remained largely a cohesive movement, the SLA’s innate diversity played a significant role in its dramatic fragmentation. Owing to a variety of factors discussed below, three SLA factions have emerged as the most significant and, along with JEM, would need to be included in any peace process that hopes to succeed.

1. Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)

The JEM began with strong leadership from former government minister, Dr. Khalil Ibrahim, a national political agenda, and a loyal and capable fighting force composed almost exclusively of ethnic Zaghawas. Moreover, the JEM has always had better access than the SLA to funding sources and supporters outside of Sudan because of its Islamist roots, its connections to the Zaghawa Diaspora in Chad and elsewhere, and its relationships with financiers in the Persian Gulf. Over time, the JEM has become the largest and most militarily significant rebel group in Darfur.

Although the two rebel groups initially sought to cooperate politically and militarily, the JEM’s past relationship with the Sudanese government and key figures within the Sudanese Islamist movement complicated its relationship with the SLA and stigmatized the JEM among many Darfuris and key players in the international community, including the United States. Dr. Khalil quickly earned a reputation as a spoiler. The JEM refused to sign the DPA in May 2006, opting to continue fighting with increased support from the Chadian and Eritrean governments. The JEM also refused to participate in the 2007 talks in Sirte, Libya, arguing that many of the rebel factions invited to the negotiations were either militarily irrelevant or proxies for the government. Instead, Khalil strengthened his military forces, launched successful raids against Sudanese government positions beyond Darfur’s borders, defended the Chadian government from Sudan-backed Chadian rebel groups, and prepared for one of the most significant events of the six-year conflict in Darfur: the May 2008 attack on the Khartoum suburb of Omdurman.

Although the JEM’s attack on Omdurman failed to unseat the regime and JEM’s expeditionary force was routed, it demonstrated JEM’s increasing ambitions and reach while highlighting the potential vulnerability of Sudanese armed forces. The JEM is now the strongest rebel group on the ground and increasingly positioned to directly challenge Sudanese forces, but it lacks the air power that the Sudanese military regularly brings to bear against rebel forces and civilians. It recently announced that it would “attack very soon the positions of the Sudanese government” in unspecified Sudanese cities and warned civilians to stay away from “all military positions in Sudanese cities” because their attack is “imminent.” While obviously this may be bravado from the JEM, it does seem symbolic of the group’s increasing confidence.

Based largely on its military success and the continuing political leadership failures of other Darfuri rebel groups, the JEM has begun to garner new support among non-Zaghawa Darfuris and in Sudan’s Kordofan region. Although the JEM has not been immune to splintering and personality clashes, the movement led by Khalil Ibrahim is relatively cohesive and demonstrates a much higher level of sophistication than its counterparts. In November, the JEM sent delegates to Doha, Qatar, to attend discussions with the Sudanese government over potential peace talks. While other rebel groups have been critical of the Qatari initiative, representatives of the JEM told Enough that they were willing to consider the Qatari proposal and present their perspective on a possible peace process.

Bottom line: The JEM is the best armed and most tightly organized Darfuri rebel group today, and their participation in negotiations is essential to reaching a durable peace agreement.

2. Roots of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA)

Darfur’s longstanding resentment of the central government began in the late 1980s, after a devastating famine led to increased tensions over scarce natural resources between nomadic Arab populations and non-Arab Darfuri farming populations. During the late 1980s and 1990s, the Khartoum government consistently backed Arab groups in violent, racially driven conflicts to take land from non-Arab groups. The SLA has its roots in the self-defense militias formed by communities in western Darfur in the mid-1990s to protect non-Arabs from attack.

In early 2003, as peace talks to end the devastating 20-year civil war between the central government and the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement, or SPLM, edged toward the landmark Comprehensive Peace Agreement (eventually signed in 2005), marginalized political leaders and supporters from Darfur’s Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit communities combined their self-defense militias to form the SLA and began attacking government posts in Darfur.

The SLA no longer exists as it did at the outset of the rebellion in 2003. From its earliest days, it was plagued by internal divisions and power struggles based principally on intense personality clashes and ethnic differences between Abdel Wahid Mohamed al-Nur, a Fur, and Minni Arko Minawi, a Zaghawa. Clear organizational and command structures were never firmly established, and additional divisions erupted between military and political leaders within opposing factions. By late 2005, the SLA had splintered into three different movements led by Abdel Wahid, Minni Minawi, and a group of Abdel Wahid’s former commanders.

Today, the strength of all of the rival SLA factions combined does not match the JEM’s capabilities, and only a few of those factions can claim support among the people of Darfur. However, the participation of certain SLA factions is critical to peace efforts, as some of these groups have some legitimacy and could play a spoiler role in any new negotiations.

a) SLA/Abdel Wahid

Throughout the conflict, Abdel Wahid has sought to sustain his folk hero reputation among the Fur population, the largest ethnic group in Darfur. As a student activist in Khartoum in the 1990s, Wahid came to believe that change in Darfur could come only through armed rebellion, and he was instrumental as a political organizer in his native Jebel Marra region (a mountainous area at the crossroads of North, South, and West Darfur and Darfur’s most fertile agricultural area) in the lead up to the SLA’s initial offensive against the Sudanese military in 2003.

Currently, Abdel Wahid’s significance is based principally on support from some of the 2.5 million Darfuris—particularly those from the Fur community—who live in camps for internally displaced persons. Through his refusal to sign the DPA and his skillful use of the Western media, Wahid has portrayed himself as a lone voice for Darfur’s most marginalized people. However, he commands few troops on the ground and has not visited Darfur since 2004. Many of his former soldiers have defected to join other factions, especially rival Ahmed Abdel-Shafi’s SLA splinter group, and Abdel Wahid now retains the support of only a few commanders confined to a small portion of Jebel Marra. Although Abdel Wahid’s refusal to participate in peace negotiations until U.N. peacekeepers are fully deployed and the Janjaweed militias fully disarmed boosted his popularity, Darfuris have begun to question the logic of holding negotiations hostage to his agenda. Now living in exile in Paris, his credibility as a voice of Darfuris and his political support even among his native Fur people is waning.

Bottom line: Despite diminishing military and political relevance, Abdel Wahid’s buy-in is a useful complement to a peace agreement because he remains the most outspoken and visible leader from Darfur’s largest ethnic group.

b) SLA/Minni Minawi

Minni Minawi signed the DPA under considerable international pressure from the United States, United Kingdom, African Union, and others. At the peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria, the international community had ill-advisedly placed a time limit on reaching a final agreement. As the talks approached their artificial finish line, the Sudanese government accepted the terms of the DPA and the international community immediately focused in on Minawi. He was widely considered the only rebel commander with significant military capacity and, following rather crude logic, diplomats felt that if he signed then Abdul Wahid and JEM would be forced to join or risk losing the war. In fact, Minawi’s decision was in some ways the nail in the coffin both in terms of his own support among Darfuris and his faction’s strength as a fighting force in Darfur. Immediately after Minawi signed the agreement and joined the Sudanese government as a senior assistant to President Omar al-Bashir, many of his commanders joined other SLA splinter groups, were co-opted by the Sudanese government to fight groups that refused to sign, or turned to crime and banditry. Forces formerly loyal to Minawi were largely responsible for the string of carjackings and attacks on aid workers in the wake of the DPA negotiations, and these forces continue to play a role in the ongoing armed banditry in Darfur. At the same time, many of his closest political advisers abandoned him and launched their own rebel factions.

Since Minawi joined the Sudanese government, he has been largely regarded by Darfuris as more sellout than savior, and he has been increasingly marginalized and undermined by Khartoum. He has largely ceremonial duties related to implementation of the DPA, but that agreement is irrelevant without its acceptance by the JEM and others. Yet the government of Sudan seeks to keep the DPA on life support to sustain the fiction that it supports a peaceful solution in Darfur, while the external actors that helped to negotiate the deeply flawed DPA continue to support the deal in the futile hope that their efforts were not in vain and in efforts to preserve their reputations.

In June 2008, Minawi left Khartoum and returned to Darfur, informally suspending his participation in the Sudanese government to protest the poor implementation of the DPA. Given that the DPA has finally been recognized by the international community as incomplete and incapable of bringing peace to Darfur, Minawi’s insistence that it be implemented is another sign of his movement’s lack of relevance among other Darfur rebel groups.

Bottom line: As the sole rebel signatory of the already largely defunct Darfur Peace Agreement, Minni Minawi is positioned to put the final nail in the DPA’s coffin and help persuade his backers in the international community to mount a more inclusive new process.

c) SLA/Unity

SLA/Unity is composed primarily of Zaghawa fighters from North Darfur and is led by commanders who served under the SLA’s first chief of staff, Abdalla Abaker, who was killed in 2004. Abaker’s former commanders remained loyal to Abdel Wahid until the talks that led to the DPA, during which they formed their own faction, the Group of 19, or G19. The mediation team leading the negotiations refused to recognize the G19 as a legitimate rebel movement, and when the talks ended the group quickly became one of the more formidable military forces in Darfur and changed its name to SLA/Unity. In August/September of 2008, the Sudanese government attacked the areas controlled by SLA/Unity in North Darfur and forced the movement to retreat from its stronghold to areas further north and west near the Chadian boarder. However, SLA/Unity remains powerful in North Darfur because of the remoteness of the area and the Sudanese government’s fear to commit ground troops after their sound defeat by the JEM in the same area in 2006.

Politically, SLA/Unity is on less sure footing. Although the movement includes a well-regarded Zaghawa leader named Suleiman Jamous (currently based in Chad as the SLA/Unity humanitarian coordinator), SLA/Unity has thus far failed to consolidate support of the Darfuri people by presenting themselves as a viable alternative to other SLA factions, while the JEM has managed to absorb a number of marginalized SLA/Unity leaders and the forces they control.

In addition, SLA/Unity has been blamed for their leading role in the September 2007 rebel attacks on AU peacekeepers in Haskanita. Enough has learned that one of the SLA/Unity commanders may be under investigation by the International Criminal Court for his role in the Haskanita attacks, along with the commander of a splinter faction of JEM and potentially another SLA faction. Jamous recently told Enough that the SLA/Unity is willing to cooperate with the International Criminal Court’s investigation of this incident and that they are open to the Qatar peace initiative, but they need to know more details before they fully commit.

Bottom line: Despite their internal leadership divisions, the SLA/Unity has significant territorial control in North Darfur and could become a spoiler if left out of the peace process.

3. Dealing With the Remaining SLA Factions

The remaining SLA factions—which in most cases consist of little more than a dissident commander with a satellite phone and perhaps a website—are neither militarily nor politically significant. Armed bandits masquerading as rebels, they lack real military capabilities but contribute to the already poor security situation on the ground. These actors should not be dealt with in the context of a peace process, as a place at the negotiating table would grant them undeserved political legitimacy. These groups should be viewed as security hazards rather than representatives of the Darfuri people.

Common Calculations: What Unites the Rebels?

Although divided by allegiance, rebel groups share a roughly similar core set of political demands. These issues are easily identified, as they have been expressed by various rebel parties in previous failed peace negotiations. However, the international community has failed to establish a sustained peace process that can unify the factions on the substance of an agreement. Such a process must include the key issues so that leaders who have disagreed in the past have an incentive to work together toward common goals despite their differences.

Three sets of issues must be part of any peace agreement. These must be discussed in a process that includes not just the key rebel groups outlined above, but also civil society organizations and Diaspora groups. While international diplomats are often loathe to meaningfully include civil society in peace talks, the lack of broad support within Darfur for previous negotiations and agreements is a major reason why they failed. A renewed peace effort for Darfur must widen the support for a deal in Darfur and abroad and better represent the interests of average Darfuris. These interests are:

1) Political empowerment: Darfuris took up arms in 2003 because of the deliberate political marginalization of the Darfuri people by the government in Khartoum. The question of how power will be distributed in Darfur in particular, and in Sudan more broadly, especially in light of the status of the CPA, must be agreed upon by all rebel parties and the Sudanese government. The rebels have indicated that their vision of power-sharing means representation for Darfuris in all sectors of the government and in the Sudanese Armed Forces, in proportions that are consistent with the most recent census in Darfur (from 1993; the 2008 census did not include Darfur because of insecurity) which concluded that 20 percent of Sudanese are from Darfur.

2) Security: Peace in Darfur is not possible without a radical change to the security situation in the region and a substantive restructuring of the security apparatus in Khartoum. First, the U.N./AU hybrid peacekeeping force, or UNAMID, must be fully deployed and afforded unrestricted access throughout Darfur. Second, the international community must support and closely monitor a comprehensive disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration program, or DDR, that disarms the Janjaweed militias, dismantles the governmental institutions that support them, and demilitarizes the other armed groups and bandits. Third, a peace agreement must allow for the safe and voluntary return of the 2.5 million displaced Darfuris to their homes. Finally, wider security sector reform must include a measure of civilian oversight to the security apparatus in Khartoum, and a new system of policing in Darfur. Such reforms must consider the realities of traditional life in Darfur, allowing farmers and herders to carry rifles to defend their land and livestock in keeping with their history.

3) Welfare: Darfuris whose livestock, land, and possessions were stolen by government-sponsored Janjaweed militias must have adequate restitution. The government of Sudan must agree to allocate substantial funds for a restitution process with international oversight to ensure that the funds are dispersed fairly. The hotly contested question of land tenure and property ownership in Darfur must also be addressed. This process, along with international prosecution and a well-resourced approach to transitional justice, will help satisfy the Darfuri demand for justice while enabling people to rebuild their lives, reestablish their livelihoods, and begin to recover from the devastating effects of the genocide.
“One Darfur”: The Importance of Engaging Darfuri Civil Society

The divide-and-destroy tactics of the Sudanese government and, to a lesser extent, the tensions between various rebel factions have highlighted ethnic differences in Darfur. Nonetheless, members of Darfuri civil society have demonstrated courage and leadership throughout the conflict and are working toward peace. Enough has observed that in some areas in Darfur, sedentary farmers and Arab nomads have worked together to forge dialogue and restore principles of co-existence and peaceful conflict resolution. This suggests that there is an important element of consensus within Darfuri civil society at this juncture, but peacemakers should not expect these groups to speak with one voice.

Meaningful participation by civil society actors will be crucial to broadening support for peace negotiations among Darfuris and ensuring popular ownership of both the peace process and its outcomes. In past peace efforts, particularly the DPA talks, civil society members were sidelined or manipulated by the Sudanese government. A strong presence of civil society groups that legitimately represent the people of Darfur (including community and tribal leaders as well as women’s group representatives) can help set a tone and agenda for the talks, mitigate the negative impact of rebel divisions, and help prevent the talks from being hijacked by armed groups.

Outside of Darfur, a network of relatively well-organized Diaspora organizations is supporting the efforts of Darfuri civil society to promote peace. African women’s organizations such as Femmes Africa Solidarité have sponsored forums to bring together women from all over Sudan and the African continent to articulate and emphasize the role of Darfuri women in peacemaking efforts in Darfur. Organizations such as the Darfuri Leader’s Network, or DLN, have conducted effective advocacy abroad for renewed dialogue in Darfur. While the Diaspora community serves an important role, the onus still remains on organizations in Darfur to carry on the dialogue and organize around common principles, understanding that there will be strong differences of opinion. Nonetheless, the merging of Darfuri civil society organizations with prominent Diaspora groups attests to the growing political will inside and outside of Darfur that could help pave the way to a promising new process.

Conclusion: Uniting for Peace

Rebel divisions are not the primary obstacle to peace in Darfur. The international community must not allow Khartoum to blame rebel divisions for the government’s inaction to end Darfur’s suffering, nor are rebel groups to be blamed from the international community’s failure to mount an effective diplomatic strategy for dealing with Sudan’s multiple crises. Although divided by personalities and power struggles, Darfur’s rebel groups and civil society leaders share the common goal of peace and justice for their people. A credible peace process to resolve the war is feasible, but it requires leadership from the international community. Sustained pressure should be placed on Khartoum to ensure it does not obstruct the consensus building between Darfur’s armed and unarmed constituencies. With sufficient political will and substantial diplomatic efforts, Darfuris can find common ground and a peace agreement could be within reach.

KHARTOUM, 28 January 2009 (IRIN) – The recent aerial bombardment by the Sudanese government and ground offensive against the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) marks the worst violence in Darfur in a year, an analyst said.

“Sudan is in a state of high tension at the moment, and we face a dangerous month ahead,” Sudan expert Alex de Waal, said. “Parts of Darfur are again in flames, with the worst fighting in the region since the beginning of 2008.”

The fighting, which started in mid-January around Muhajiriya in South Darfur, has forced thousands of civilians to flee their homes, with many heading north of the town, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“They are displaced, but a lot of them are still on the move,” said Zeljko Nikolich, OCHA humanitarian affairs officer in El-Fasher, capital of North Darfur state. “A lot of them are temporarily settled in places.”

OCHA, he said, had received reports of six trucks – each carrying 30-50 people – arriving in El-Fasher from Muhajiriya. Another 50 families had arrived in the town of Shangil Tobay, he added, quoting Oxfam, while 400 more families were en route.

Citing a report by the humanitarian coordinator of a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), Nikolich said another 300 households had arrived in the Wadaah area, almost 100km north of Muhajiriya. Four hundred others were in Khazan Djedid village – en route to Wadaah.

The SLA faction is led by Mini Minnawi, who became a presidential adviser after signing a peace deal with the government in 2006.

OCHA could not verify the numbers because of insecurity, Nikolich said, adding that four trucks carrying displaced people had arrived in Dar El Salam, along the border between North and South Darfur states.

Another aid worker in Nyala, who requested anonymity, told IRIN on 27 January: “People have been displaced, but we do not know the number yet. We are trying to send a team to Muhajiriya on [29 January] to make an assessment.”

The hostilities began in Muhajiriya, 80km east of Nyala, capital of South Darfur state. The town was taken over by JEM rebels from Minnawi’s government-aligned group after a battle on 15 January.

Vowing to recapture the town, the army bombed the area and sent ground troops to fight JEM, according to the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping mission, UNAMID.

On 24 January, for example, a government military aircraft dropped two bombs over a camp for displaced people in Muhajiriya, killing one child and damaging 13 houses. Continued fighting in the town has since forced about 3,000 people to camp near UNAMID’s base.

Violence condemned

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the violence, saying continued military action threatens civilian lives and jeopardises efforts to reach a durable peace.

Rodolphe Adada, the Joint UN-AU Special Representative in Darfur, warned that increased insecurity in Darfur would affect the delivery of vital humanitarian aid.

“I call upon all warring parties to instantly cease hostilities and end this cycle of violence that would only add to the suffering of the people of Darfur,” Adada said.

The security situation in the area has remained tense, with ground and aerial bombing continuing approximately 9km from El Fasher, UNAMID said on 27 January.

JEM deputy chief of staff, Suleiman Sandal Hagger, told IRIN the government had also bombed JEM positions near El-Fasher, in Wadi Hawar and around Muhajiriya. The area was reportedly calm, however, on 28 January.

“Now the situation is calm, but still the Sudan troops are near us, not far from the places where we are,” Sandal said by satellite phone from Darfur. “At any time, [fighting] is imminent.”

A Sudanese army spokesman declined to comment, but the government has argued it is acting in self-defence, to maintain security and stability in Darfur and to protect aid convoys from bandits.

De Waal said fighting had escalated ahead of an expected decision by the International Criminal Court on possible charges related to war crimes in Darfur against President Omar al-Bashir.

The Government of Southern Sudan has drawn a new policy aimed at providing a foundation for the restoration of the tourism industry in the region in the coming years. The new strategy will also be followed by new legislation and regulations for the sector.

Six of the former national parks have since the signing in early 2005 of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and the Khartoum regime, been restored and the inventories of game on site taken so far are better than many expected.

Our correspondent said after three years of relative peace, interest in southern Sudan for wildlife has been growing in recent years with some selected private outfits operating in the region. There are several protected areas now including Boma National Park. It is one of the world’s most dramatic movements of animals that witnessed the largest wildlife migration of the world.

Besides its wildlife-based attractions in the region, it is also a home to many rivers, including the Nile, where white water rafting and other river based adventure activities can take place. The Southern Sudan also contains the “Sudd,” arguably the world’s most extensive wetland along the river Nile, all of which is a birdwatchers paradise and the cultural variety across the Southern tribes is legendary in any case.

Security has also improved considerably since hostilities ceased. Road works are in progress from Juba along the main two traffic arteries towards the Ugandan border.

Tourism is one of the top five sectors being looked at hence the development of its full potential in southern Sudan would attract thousands of tourists into the region. It would generate more jobs for citizens as well as become the second leading industry after petroleum.

This is the second installation in a series of letters to President Obama spelling out a practical roadmap to end the crisis in Sudan.

During his first month in office, President Obama will face a number of foreign policy tests, challenges, and dilemmas from a variety of hot spots around the world. All are grave, but given the increasing probability that the International Criminal Court, or ICC, will issue an arrest warrant for the Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir, the situation in Sudan will very quickly demand his attention.

Omar al-Bashir has threatened serious consequences if a warrant is issued, including the potential shutdown of humanitarian aid agencies and of UNAMID, the hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur. Much of this is bluster by Bashir, hoping to avoid a potential warrant, and is similar to threats made by other leaders—such as former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic and Liberian President Charles Taylor—when they were hoping to avoid justice. How the United States responds to Bashir’s threats will factor greatly into what the Sudanese regime actually does in response to the ICC action and will also help shape what the international community is prepared to do. President Obama’s response must be firm in addressing this immediate threat, but should not lose sight of the larger strategic goals that ought to be at the center of a new administration’s policy: an unyielding focus on brokering a peace deal for Darfur and the implementation of the existing Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, the 2005 agreement to end the 22-year war between northern and southern Sudan.

THE IMMEDIATE IMPERATIVE

It is likely that the ICC judges will issue an arrest warrant for President Bashir during President Obama’s first month in office. The Obama administration should make it clear from the beginning that it fully supports justice and accountability for Darfur’s genocide, and will not tolerate any obstruction of the aid effort, deployment of the UNAMID civilian protection force, or implementation of the CPA. Clear messages from the Obama administration that there will be consequences for such actions should be delivered to the leadership of the Sudan regime. Multilateral diplomatic efforts should be launched by the new administration to help build international solidarity for specific consequences to be imposed on Sudan if it targets either UNAMID or humanitarian relief operations. Consequences could include: an arms embargo, rapid escalation of targeted sanctions against key regime officials, a plan to apprehend Bashir and support for further ICC indictments of culpable officials, targeted air strikes against air assets of the regime used for offensive military operations, and other measures.

If an arrest warrant is issued, ruling party officials in Sudan will have a choice: retain Bashir as president and face increased isolation from the international community, or arrange for his resignation and departure from the scene, thus allowing for more pragmatic policies to emerge.

We don’t know what the regime ultimately will do, but we urge the Obama administration to work behind the scenes with countries with influence in Sudan to press for the latter possibility. Ambassador Susan Rice, President Obama’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, spent the beginning of her career as an Africanist. Her expertise will increase U.S. credibility in negotiations at the United Nations with key international actors, but the window of opportunity to exact coordinated pressure on Khartoum will not remain open for very long. The chance to take advantage of it will be largely determined in the first few weeks of President Obama’s tenure by the leadership his administration is willing and able to exercise on this.

President Obama should move quickly to name the high level envoy who will have ownership of Sudan policy and responsibility for ending the genocide. It is essential that this official have the authority to coordinate all relevant parts of the foreign policy bureaucracy and have requisite familiarity with the issues to hit the ground running. The envoy’s role, mandate and authority needs to be clearly spelled out in advance and at the senior-most levels of the U.S. government.

THE LONGER-TERM SUDAN POLICY FOCUS

Even while immediate challenge posed by the expected arrest warrant commands attention, President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Ambassador Rice would be well served to quickly establish clear policy objectives focused on a real and lasting all-Sudan solution for Darfur, the South, and the rest of this embattled country. While both Secretary Clinton and Ambassador Rice pledged strong action on Darfur during their Senate confirmation hearings last week, the need for a holistic approach to Sudan’s crises could not be greater as deadlines for Sudan’s national elections and other crucial elements of the CPA’s implementation (such as North-South border demarcation) loom large. The Obama administration must make the crucial leap to “connect the dots,” and invest in holistic strategies that will offer long-term solutions to Sudan’s violence.

In her confirmation hearing, Ambassador Rice correctly identified the “root of the problems in Darfur and throughout Sudan” as “the lack of an underlying peace.” Her diagnosis supports the notion that the Obama administration must put peacemaking at the center not only of their Sudan policy agenda, but of a broader effort to reframe the overall approach to U.S relations throughout the Africa. Ensuring that such an approach is implemented and maintained will be key in the weeks and months ahead.

As we said in our first letter to President Obama, the message of Sudan activists all over the United States is clear:

* Don’t try to contain the damage from the war in Darfur—END the war.
* Don’t just declare that genocide is taking place—END the genocide.
* Don’t just manage the consequences of crisis after crisis in Sudan—END these crises.

President Obama must lead a concerted international peace surge for Sudan, and diplomacy must be backed by well-conceived and consistently escalating pressure on Khartoum and other combatants to create the proper conditions for a lasting peace. More effective protection of civilians and continued steps toward accountability for crimes against humanity, which are vital in their own right, will help advance this peace surge.
Secretary Clinton recently highlighted the need to reassess options to ensure better civilian protection in Darfur and neighboring Chad, but these efforts are just one part of what must be a new comprehensive strategy for Sudan.

More than five-and-a-half years into Darfur’s crisis, and four years after the signing of the CPA, there is no prospect of a peace deal for Darfur and no coherent effort to ensure that the CPA gets implemented; in fact, progress on the CPA is progressing at an alarmingly slow rate. This is a damning indictment of U.S. and international efforts in Sudan to date. Despite an abundance of rhetoric, it is clear to all parties, including the Sudanese government, that the United States government and its international partners have thus far been content simply to manage the consequences of the crisis in Sudan, rather than resolve the situation.

The costs of this approach have already been immensely painful for Darfuris, who continue to be killed and driven from their homes in large numbers by government attacks, and are without a U.N. force capable of protecting them. Equally important, without a substantial investment in peacemaking in Darfur and peace implementation for all Sudan, the facts on the ground have the potential to become much, much worse: Darfur’s war likely will continue to escalate, the CPA may collapse and reopen a direct North-South conflict, many more people may die, rebel groups will become larger and even more lawless, and Sudan will potentially disintegrate as a state. Sudan’s potential fracturing in particular has a range of serious international security implications, ranging from disruptions in oil supplies to an increased ability of terrorist groups to operate within such chaos. The possibility of southern Sudan seceding following its self-referendum in 2011 has never been more real; the repercussions of such an outcome, given the current trajectory in Sudan, would likely be severe for both the northern and southern populations.

Certainly, protecting civilians is an important goal that will require significant energy and resources for the foreseeable future. But it is not sufficient. Protection efforts must be buttressed by a broader approach to end Sudan’s multiple conflicts. Pursuing the goal of civilian protection during the conflict should not obscure or divert energy from the larger and ultimate objective: bringing peace to Sudan by securing a credible deal for Darfur and implementing the terms of the CPA.

The CPA itself was reached after a sustained investment in diplomacy, led in part by the United States and backed by significant incentives and pressures. That hard-won agreement would not now be in jeopardy if the investment in diplomacy had been maintained and the international community had continued its pressure to ensure that the agreement was implemented. It is not too late for the United States to re-invest in ensuring that the outstanding issues preventing full implementation of the CPA are addressed, and the Obama administration must take these steps or accept the possible disintegration of Sudan in the next several years.

A U.S.-LED PEACE STRATEGY

The advent of a new administration has opened a window of opportunity for the United States to use its tremendous experience in peacemaking. Moreover, given that President Obama will face enormous challenges—ranging from a full-blown financial crisis to active wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan—a significant investment in peacemaking in Sudan is both cost-effective and has the greatest chance of ending Sudan’s suffering.

Leverage for peace in Sudan can best come from the following actions.

Continue the International Criminal Court investigation

Accountability for crimes against humanity in Darfur remains an essential element of a lasting peace in Sudan, and evidence to date suggests that the recent ICC actions have generated genuine pressure on the Sudanese government, as well as the rebel leadership. As discussed above, the Obama administration should support the arrest warrants for President Bashir and rebel officials as they are issued.

It now appears that the Security Council will not make the mistake of prematurely deferring the cases against government or rebel officials, which would have set back the cause of peace.[1] Nothing less than a peace deal in Darfur that includes alternative accountability mechanisms broadly acceptable to Darfuri civilians and real evidence of implementation of the CPA could be sufficient to justify deferring the ICC cases. Short of this, the United States should make clear that it will veto any deferral resolution. The Obama administration also should provide the ICC with any evidence it has regarding the prosecutor’s accusations. The bottom line: don’t trade accountability for war crimes for empty promises from Khartoum.

Enhance multilateral, non-military coercion

President Obama should work through or with selected members of the U.N. Security Council to bring a larger collection of nations on board with targeted sanctions against those most responsible for violence in Sudan, whether they are government or rebel actors. If the Security Council fails to pass these broader sanctions, then the new administration should build an international coalition to bring this pressure. Along with the ICC, these instruments can create much higher legal, financial, and political costs to those who are responsible for violence against civilians. If efforts to pass targeted sanctions through the Security Council fall short, a concerted effort should be made to work with the European Union to apply joint sanctions. In addition, the possibility of capital market sanctions for oil companies contracting with the Sudanese government should be explored.

Expand the arms embargo

Given the government of Sudan’s continued attacks against civilians in Darfur and compelling evidence that weapons from other nations, including China, are finding their way to the frontlines, a comprehensive arms embargo against the government should be imposed by the Security Council. The embargo should include a robust international monitoring mechanism to ensure its effectiveness.

Make UNAMID effective

UNAMID is failing to achieve its central goal of protecting the civilian population in the region. Much of this failure can be traced directly to the practice of giving the Sudanese government—the prime perpetrator of the genocide—a de facto veto over the mission’s composition and operations. This is simply unacceptable. Given the ICC prosecutor’s accusations against Bashir and his loyalists, the United States and United Nations must not allow Khartoum to decide the mission’s force size, national composition, the extent of AU versus international participation, timeframe for deployment, or civilian protection mandate.

A robust force on the ground in Darfur with a competent lead nation and a clear command-and-control structure is essential for saving lives, creating an environment amenable to the peace surge, and establishing the international credibility required to ensure that a broader peace strategy succeeds. Ambassador Rice has already indicated her desire to bolster what she called “global peacekeeping capacity.” Galvanizing the political will necessary to build this capacity could finally give UNAMID a chance to succeed in protecting civilians.

Ban offensive military flights

President Obama and other key members of his administration have taken a robust position in the past regarding the need to counter Sudan’s aerial attacks on civilians in Darfur, and have voiced support for enforcing a no-fly zone. Continued Sudanese aerial attacks in Darfur— there were over 40 last year and the Sudanese government launched a new aerial campaign last week —have rightly generated considerable attention. The U.N. Security Council has demanded an end to offensive military flights several times, most recently in Resolution 1769, which authorized UNAMID.[2] UNAMID has not enforced that demand. It is clear that the next administration and the U.N. Security Council need to consider how best to counter these continuing aerial flights and provocations.

A CHECKLIST FOR THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

As soon as possible, the new administration should undertake the following:

* Appoint the President’s Special Envoy who will own this issue so that individual can begin working as rapidly as possible, and clearly establish the mandate, role and authority of this envoy within the administration. Providing sufficient authority and support will be vital.
* Identify two senior diplomats experienced in peacemaking to be the deputies to the President’s Special Envoy, one for Darfur and the other for the CPA.
* Engage with key international actors to develop a practical and escalating menu of options for exerting leverage on the government of Sudan and rebel movements to create an environment conducive to credible negotiations.
* Task relevant agencies, including the Pentagon and the U.S. Permanent Mission to the United Nations, to explore direct ways to make ongoing civilian protection efforts more effective, including steps to make UNAMID more robust and capable and to enforce a ban on offensive military flights.
* Identify U.S. Foreign Service officers to staff a diplomatic cell that will be deployed to embassies in the region to work on these issues around the clock in the manner they deserve.
* Work closely with interested parties with leverage in Sudan and the region, especially China, the United Kingdom, France, and key African countries, to coordinate efforts on the peace surge, protection of civilians, and accountability.

By taking these practical steps, President Obama will be well positioned to launch a credible peace surge for Sudan, and work with key countries and the U.N. Security Council to build momentum for the one end-state with which no external country disagrees: peace.

A HISTORIC CHOICE

The government of Sudan has tried to frame the options for the international community as either full military engagement (an option it knows is unrealistic), or limited humanitarian efforts. In fact, there is a world of opportunity in between as long as there is the necessary political will to see an end to the killing in Sudan. President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and Ambassador Rice must assume international leadership in highlighting these options, rallying the world—including many countries that have been content to stand on the sidelines— to respond in unity, and deploying the best and brightest in America’s diplomatic corps to end the slaughter. Our future in Africa will be directly shaped by whether we succeed or fail in Sudan.

As aerial attacks on Darfur by the Sudanese government continue over five years into the crisis and the CPA shows dangerous signs of weakness that could lead to outright collapse, the Obama administration must engage immediately in leading an international peace surge for Sudan. This engagement will clearly demonstrate that the new U.S. administration will exact real consequences on the Sudanese government if its unacceptable policies and behavior continue.

Members of the Obama administration have spoken passionately about their intention to act boldly to end the crisis in Darfur and promote international efforts toward a peaceful future in Sudan. Now they will have the chance to do so at a crucial juncture in Sudan’s history.

John Prendergast is co-chair and John Norris is executive director of Enough: The Project to End Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity at the Center for American Progress. Jerry Fowler is president of the Save Darfur Coalition.

Endnotes

[1] Article 16 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court provides that “[n]o investigation or prosecution may be commenced or proceeded with under this Statute for a period of 12 months after the Security Council, in a resolution adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, has requested the Court to that effect; that request may be renewed by the Council under the same conditions.” The Sudanese government so far has failed in getting Security Council support for a 12-month suspension of the investigation, in large part because of the dismal situation on the ground in Darfur and the government’s lack of seriousness in addressing the peace process.

[2] The U.N. Security Council banned offensive military flights over Darfur in March 2005 (UNSC Resolution 1591). In July 2007, Resolution 1769 demanded that “that there should be no aerial bombings and the use of United Nations markings on aircraft used in such attacks.” The Sudanese government has violated this ban consistently and without consequence.

Sudan’s government is increasingly fearful that the incoming US administration will resort to military intervention to end the six-year-old crisis in Darfur that has killed up to 200,000 people and left 2.7 million homeless, diplomatic sources in Khartoum say.

“There is a great need for us to sound the alarm again about Darfur,” Hillary Clinton, who was endorsed as secretary of state yesterday, told the US Senate this week. “It is a terrible humanitarian crisis compounded by a corrupt and very cruel regime in Khartoum.”

Clinton said the Obama administration, which takes office on Tuesday, was examining a wide range of options, including direct intervention in support of a joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force, known as Unamid, which has struggled to make an impact after beginning operations last year.

“We have spoken about other options, no-fly zones, other sanctions and sanctuaries, looking to deploy the Unamid force to try to protect the refugees but also to repel the militias,” Clinton said. “There is a lot under consideration.” Clinton has previously asserted that the US has a “moral duty” to help Darfurian civilians.

The US accuses Khartoum’s leadership of committing genocide in Darfur. Washington has eschewed direct military involvement since the crisis erupted in 2003, despite growing pressure to act from Sudanese insurgents, exiles, and evangelical Christian groups.

But in a surprise move last week, President George Bush ordered the Pentagon to begin an immediate airlift of vehicles and equipment for the peacekeeping force.

Alain LeRoy, head of UN peacekeeping operations, told the Security Council last month that violence in Darfur was intensifying and stepped-up international involvement was urgently required to avoid a descent into “mayhem”.

Influential US-based pressure groups such as the Save Darfur Coalition and Enough are meanwhile demanding that US president-elect Barack Obama act swiftly to fulfil campaign pledges to take more robust action.

“I will make ending the genocide in Darfur a priority from day one,” Obama said in April. He has also previously backed a toughening of sanctions and said the US might help enforce a no-fly zone.

“Obama is the [ruling] National Congress party’s worst nightmare,” said a diplomat in Khartoum. “They wanted [John] McCain and the Republicans to win. They thought they were pragmatists. They think the Democrats are ideologues. They haven’t forgotten it was the Democrats who bombed them.”

That was a reference to a retaliatory US cruise missile attack on a suspect pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum in 1998, ordered by President Bill Clinton after al-Qaida attacked US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Sudan provided a base for the al-Qaida leader, Osama bin Laden, from 1991 until he moved to Afghanistan in 1996.

A source in Khartoum said Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, was especially alarmed by Obama’s selection of Susan Rice, a former Clinton national security council adviser on Africa, as a cabinet member and US ambassador to the UN.

Rice has spoken passionately in the past of the need for US or Nato air strikes, or a naval blockade of Sudan’s oil exports, to halt the violence in Darfur.

Referring to the 1994 Rwanda genocide, she said: “I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required.”

Bashir felt only “fear and loathing” for Rice and had told aides: “I don’t want to see her face here,” the source said.

Khartoum’s concerns about American intervention extend to southern Sudan, fuelled by reports, denied by the US, that Washington is arming the separatist Sudan People’s Liberation Army.

The SPLA is the military wing of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement with which the north fought a 30-year civil war. Salva Kiir, the SPLM leader and Bashir’s likely rival in elections due later this year, received red carpet treatment by Bush at the White House last week.

“The government knows the US does not arm the SPLA. They’re already heavily armed,” a Khartoum-based diplomat said. “But the US does train them. It helps with logistics, planning, and so on. And they (the SPLA) do need air defence. Whether to provide air defence to the south will be a key question for the Obama administration.”

Fears of direct confrontation with Washington are being fuelled by expectations that the International Criminal Court, backed in this instance by the US, will issue an arrest warrant for Bashir within the coming weeks. The ICC chief prosecutor charged Bashir last year with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity relating to Darfur.

A call this week by a leading Sudanese opposition figure, Hassan al-Turabi, for Bashir to surrender himself to the ICC to avoid further confrontation with the US and the west has added to tensions in Khartoum. According to family members, Turabi was subsequently arrested.

As Sudan awaits the International Criminal Court’s decision on whether to issue an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir, the government has resumed bombing attacks against rebel groups in the western region of Darfur.

Last November, President Bashir announced a unilateral ceasefire in the government’s fight against rebel groups in Darfur. But a week ago, rebels said the government had resumed bombing raids in the region.

Sudan’s military confirmed Wednesday it had conducted air raids on rebels from the Justice and Equality Movement around the town of Muhajiriya in South Darfur.

The rebel group’s Ireland-based head of Training and Strategic Planning, Abdullahi El-Tom, said that the attacks are continuing

“Over the past weeks there have been sporadic attacks without following any clear pattern. Because they seem to cover the whole of Darfur, parts of north Darfur as well as south Darfur, and it is not confined to areas where JEM forces are available,” he said. “Today there have been some sort of major engagements, they were attacked by forces from the government, aided also by members of Mini Minnawi’s forces and JEM splinters.”

No deaths have been reported from the bombings.

Tensions are high in Khartoum as an announcement is expected soon from the International Criminal Court in the Hague on whether it will agree to a request by the court’s chief prosecutor for an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir, on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed in the Darfur conflict. El-Tom says this may be a cause of the renewed bombing.

“It seems that the government wants to send a signal to the international community that they can destabilize the whole area if the indictment of Bashir is to go ahead, I cannot see an explanation other than that,” said El-Tom.

Late Wednesday, prominent opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi was arrested in Khartoum. Turabi heads the opposition Popular Congress Party, and is a former ally of the ruling National Congress Party who helped bring President Bashir to power.

But Turabi has grown increasingly critical of the regime in recent years and earlier this week called for President Bashir to surrender to the ICC.

With the exception of Turabi, the leaders of Sudan’s main political parties have, at least publicly, lined up in opposition to a warrant for President Bashir.

Turabi was briefly detained last year when he was accused of collaborating with an attack by the Justice and Equality Movement on Khartoum.

Also Wednesday, U.S. military aircraft began transporting equipment for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Darfur from Rwanda to Sudan.

According to the United Nations up to 300,000 people have been killed in the Darfur conflict since 2003, and about 2.5 million displaced.

Reframing the Overall Approach to U.S. Relations with Africa

The Obama administration has an opportunity to fundamentally remake U.S. relations with Africa during its tenure, and a cornerstone of that effort needs to be a much greater emphasis on the most cost-effective element of our foreign policy tools: peacemaking. An investment in ending some of the world’s deadliest, most destructive, and costliest wars would yield great results in those countries and the positive repercussions from such engagement would rebound across the continent.

As the first president of the United States with immediate African roots, President Obama not only has an important reservoir of goodwill on the continent, he also has the ability to move beyond the tendentious “North-South” debate between developed and less developed countries that has made more transformational policies difficult to attain. Efforts by the dying generation of Africa’s strong men who believe they should rule for life, such as Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, to portray President Obama as a former colonial master will have little resonance in Africa or elsewhere. President Obama will represent a fresh start, but the problems facing Africa and how best to address them will be no less acute.

Equally important, an Obama administration can also leave behind the “for-us-or-against-us” strategies of the Bush administration that tended to ignore the worst behavior of “allies” while demonizing every action of those who were deemed “enemies.” The Bush approach was in many ways a return to a Cold War calculus and approach to relations with the continent that did little to ameliorate the fundamental forces driving conflict on the continent or to improve the overall capacity of states to address such tensions. To be fair, the Bush administration did make a considerable investment in HIV/AIDS prevention in Africa through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS relief, or PEPFAR, and also deeply engaged in pursuit of an eventual peace deal between the Sudanese government and southern-based rebels. The Obama administration will need a much more nuanced approach, and it will need to work more closely with both governments and civil society on the continent to shape a shared agenda.

Given its thinly veiled hostility toward most forms of multilateral institution building, the Bush administration also placed limited emphasis on these issues in the context of Africa, despite a glaring need for Africa’s regional institutions to improve their capability and effectiveness. The Bush administration’s low regard for the United Nations in general also largely precluded the Security Council from playing an effective role in addressing Africa’s multiple crises.

It is essential that the new administration invest significantly in peacemaking and take a smarter, more comprehensive approach to this peacemaking. However, it is vital that these investments in peacekeeping are accompanied by long- term investments in development, crisis prevention, and in shaping African regional institutions that are built around shared values. Too often, membership in African regional organizations has simply been a matter of geography—with democracies and autocracies lumped together. Yet, it is impossible to imagine effective regional institutions in Africa that lack a shared commitment to certain essential values, including democratic government, the responsibility to protect their own populations, and relatively open trade. Indeed, regional organizations in Europe and Latin America have only become more effective when certain membership criteria were added on top of geographic considerations.

The African Union in particular, has a wildly mixed record in this regard. As an organization, it has been far too willing to practice lowest common denominator policies, such as its relative tolerance of the Sudan regime’s massive human rights abuses in Darfur. Similarly, both the African Union and the Southern African Development Community have struggled to come to terms with President Robert Mugabe’s ruinous rule in Zimbabwe. Yet, the recent decision by the African Union to suspend Guinea’s membership unless the military officers who conducted the coup in that country restore “constitutional rule” is exactly the kind of behavior a regional organization should be demanding. This also suggests that with the right kind of long-term support from the United States the mantra of “African solutions to African problems” could move beyond empty rhetoric. This will require two important developments:

* African regional institutions need to become increasingly responsive to the needs of African citizens and not just the prerogatives of African heads of state.
* The broader international community must recognize that war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide are not “African problems.” They are international problems that demand international solutions.

Reshaping the overall approach to Africa will also demand that the Obama administration face some hard choices. Development resources are increasingly dominated by spending on HIV/AIDS. While responding to the HIV/AIDS pandemic is a crucial priority, if U.S. development assistance becomes skewed too far in this direction, it will become very difficult to make long- term investments in state-building, the rule of law, basic education, and economic growth—the elements that are fundamental to changing Africa’s course over the long haul.

The administration will also need to take a hard look at continued agricultural subsidies in the United States. These subsidies continue to drain federal funds at a time when there are unprecedented budget pressures, while simultaneously making it harder for many African states to compete in one of the few areas where they enjoy a comparative advantage. Cutting these subsidies would benefit Americans in three ways: They would pay fewer tax dollars to support unneeded subsidies; they would enjoy the fruits of greater competition as consumers; and, over time, they would need to invest fewer dollars in development and humanitarian relief as Africa has the chance to achieve greater prosperity The same can be said for European agricultural subsidies. While it may sound strange to tie the issue of agricultural subsidies back to the questions of war and peace on the continent, it is essential to do so. For too long, U.S. efforts in development, economic development, trade, humanitarian relief, and diplomacy on the continent have been poorly connected threads, and all of these efforts have collectively suffered as a result.

A Focus on peacemaking

Sudan, Somalia, Congo, Chad, and northern Uganda are part of a region of east and central Africa that is battered by chronic conflict, with millions dead and even more displaced over the last couple decades. It is the deadliest zone of conflict in the world since World War II. Congo and Sudan alone account for nearly 8 million deaths due to the legacy of war in the past two decades.

As part of its fundamental rethink of Africa policy, the Obama administration will need to shift U.S. policy from simply managing the symptoms of Africa’s biggest wars—in the form of billions of dollars in humanitarian aid and peace observation missions that are often unable to effectively protect civilians—to ending these conflicts. The existing model of conflict resolution in Africa has focused on one conflict at a time, treating Africa’s wars as if they occur in isolation. Extreme examples of this include dealing with Sudan’s north-south war while setting the issue of Darfur and eastern Sudan to the side; focusing on the situation in Somalia without effectively addressing the standoff between Ethiopia and Eritrea that fuels the conflict; and negotiating in northern Uganda without involving or sanctioning Sudan’s ruling party, which has long supported the Lord’s Resistance Army as a proxy force. Most of Africa’s wars are complex and regional in nature, and they cannot be addressed by a bureaucratic process that encourages stove-piping rather than coordination and synthesis.

The new administration needs to make an investment in competent, sustained conflict resolution, backed by focused leverage that transforms the logic of regional combatants from war to peace.

Enhancing U.S. capacities for peace

The basic elements of an enhanced peacemaking strategy would include the following:

a) Diplomatic capacity: Additional diplomatic slots should be assigned and staffed in embassies throughout East and Central Africa with the primary emphasis of these positions on support for various peace processes in the region. Country teams in each embassy would work closely with Washington and with existing regional efforts to step up support for peace efforts. U.S. diplomats would meet quarterly in the region to coordinate peacemaking strategies, strategize, and share information. Country and issue experts would be hired and shared regionally to support the ongoing and new peace processes with a focus on making them more effective. In general, the U.S. embassies on the continent are not only grossly understaffed, but are badly lacking country and issue experts with specific peace-building experience.

b) Inter-Agency task force: A senior official from the State Department or National Security Council should oversee and coordinate a Task Force that helps shape the diplomatic strategy in each of the conflicts of East and Central Africa: Sudan, Congo, Somalia, Chad, Ethiopia-Eritrea, Central African Republic, and the Lord’s Resistance Army threat. The situation in Zimbabwe would also likely be included in this group. The Task Force can ensure the sharing of resources, personnel, and intelligence across the region to guarantee maximum coordination and provide strategic direction to multilateral efforts on each of the processes. Additional country and issue experts should be contracted to support the work of the task force and to purposefully think outside the box of existing approaches. Staff should also be placed in New York and Brussels to support enhanced diplomacy within the U.N. Security Council and European Union.

c) Special envoys: When appropriate, the president should appoint special envoys to add gravitas to peace efforts for specific conflicts. Envoys would work closely with the enhanced regional and D.C.-based capacities, and would be deployed when key messages need to be delivered or support for negotiations is required. Special envoys are by no means a magic bullet, and the effectiveness of many envoys in the past has been undercut by simmering tensions with existing bureaucratic structures and officials. This suggests that special envoys should only be deployed when they are sufficiently senior to command respect within the system and actually serve as a focal point for coordination and effective policymaking. The relationship between any such special envoy and the task force described above would need to be clearly articulated before such a person was deployed.

d) Washington Meetings: When appropriate, the Obama administration should host ministerial or working-level meetings in Washington with key actors, including key diplomatic allies, to help jump-start stalled peace processes or launch new ones. The ability of the United States to bring warring parties to the negotiating table has been sadly underutilized in recent years.

e) Clear top-level leadership: Senior-level officials in the administration should run point for their departments and agencies to ensure maximal coordination and rapid response. Cabinet officials should clearly assign responsibility for leading on African conflict resolution issues to a senior official within his or her department or agency, thus minimizing confusion over responsibility. At times, these assigned officials could take a more direct role in support of negotiations if appropriate, and in close coordination with the Task Force described above.

The three deadliest conflicts in Africa

Sudan, eastern Congo, and Somalia are the three deadliest conflicts on the continent and deserve immediate attention and a new strategy. At the same time, the administration will also need to develop new plans and a new approach to dealing with the Lord’s Resistance Army, relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia, and the general situation in Zimbabwe. Forthcoming Enough papers will address the Lord’s Resistance Army and Zimbabwe.

With regard to the three biggest conflicts on the African continent, we offer the following recommendations:

1. Sudan

Nowhere else is a new approach to making peace more needed than in Darfur and southern Sudan, where Enough has called for a concerted “peace surge.” There remains no comprehensive, internationally supported initiative for making peace in Darfur, and no effective and high-level strategy for implementing the existing peace deal for southern Sudan. The Obama administration should focus on helping build an effective peace process, maximally coordinating with China as the biggest investor in Sudan, with Qatar and its fledgling efforts, and other key Arab states that have economic leverage with the Khartoum regime and who do not want to see their investments put at risk by a widening conflict in Sudan.

The timing is auspicious. The International Criminal Court will likely issue an indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir early in 2009, and the United States will have an opportunity to quietly build an effective coalition of countries that demands peace and justice for Sudan in the form of a peace deal that addresses the root causes in Darfur, the implementation of the north-south peace deal, steps to ensure accountability, and a practical strategy to remove Bashir as president.

Beyond support for the ICC indictments of Bashir and some of the rebel leaders, leverage should be built through intensive work in the U.N. Security Council to go after the assets of Sudan’s ruling party (particularly President Bashir, his family, and associates) and rebel leaders who are undermining peace in Darfur. Other leverage-building initiatives could include the initiation of NATO planning for a credible no-fly zone with muscular follow-up actions in the event that the Sudanese regime cuts off humanitarian aid access in response to the imposition of the U.N. ban on offensive military flights. The effort to fully staff the U.N. force in Darfur at 26,000 should be accompanied by a shift in the U.N. forces mandate that would allow it to protect civilians who want to go home to their villages of origin, which should be the ultimate goal of our Darfur policy. In addition, the administration should take a hard look at steps to increase pressure on Port Sudan, a vital transportation link for Sudanese oil exports, recognizing that this would require intensive diplomacy with China given its impact on oil shipments.

Lastly, the administration will need to take a much more integrated look at the problems spilling over the borders in Chad, the Central African Republic, and western Sudan, recognizing that state weakness and internal conflicts in both Chad and the CAR continue to make the Darfur conflict more difficult to resolve.

2. Eastern Congo

Local, national, regional, and international factors continue to fuel the deadly war in eastern Congo. At the local level, disputes over land and citizenship contribute to considerable tensions. At the national level, poor governance and fundamental insecurity have created a vacuum in which numerous spoilers have considerable room to operate. At the regional level, militias such as the Rwandan FDLR, the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army, and very bad relations between Kinshasa and Kigali have created an environment of permanent instability and hostility. Lastly, the international trade in minerals has created a self-financing mechanism for militias and others hoping to continue to exploit violence to their own gain. The Obama administration should focus on more robustly supporting existing conflict resolution efforts led by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, and taking action to help end the atrocities being committed against civilian populations. Priorities would include:

* High-level support for a negotiated deal with the main rebel groups and a practical road map for implementing this deal
* Leadership in fostering and provision of technical support for a multilateral military and sanctions strategy to deal with the FDLR and CNDP
* Political and intelligence support for the International Criminal Court’s investigations into war crimes in the Kivus
* Real support for security sector reform and DDR strategies
* An investigation into what must be done to end the predatory extraction of “conflict minerals” in the East, the insatiable demand for which traces back to the electronics industry in the United States, Asia, and Europe.

Improving the situation in eastern Congo will demand some very tough diplomacy, and a firm message from Washington that the administration will not tolerate either the Government of Congo or Rwanda offering direct support to militia groups on the ground. The use of these proxy militias continues to be a cancer in the region.

3. Somalia

As Ethiopia withdraws from Somalia, there will be an opportunity to create a more rational diplomatic and security strategy aimed at isolating the hardline Islamist elements in the Shabaab militia. The Obama administration should focus on buttressing and upgrading the existing U.N.-led peace process (the Djibouti Process), while resisting efforts to put in place a poorly thought out, poorly resourced, and poorly staffed U.N. peacekeeping mission with a murky mandate.

Much more work will need to be done to build a genuine government of national unity from the bottom up, with the objective of creating a real power-sharing formula that includes key clan-based leaders, businessmen, and moderate Islamists. A wider security strategy focused on building an alliance of clan-based networks and functioning local governing authorities from Somaliland, Puntland, and throughout the South would further isolate hard-line elements within the Shabaab if it feeds into the transitional governing authority and supports the provision of security and social services, the two things Somalis most crave. Targeted sanctions should be aimed at hard-line Islamists and reactionary warlords who continue to undermine peace and the construction of a legitimate government and the external actors that support them.

Furthermore, a parallel diplomatic effort should be launched to deal with the simmering Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict, including conclusive border demarcation followed by internationally backed bilateral talks on issues of mutual concern. The standoff between these two countries has helped fuel conflict in Somalia over the past decade. The latest chapter in their proxy competition has been particularly deadly and dangerous, further destabilizing Somalia and bringing the two states closer to the possibility of renewed interstate war, an outcome that would be devastating for the Horn of Africa.

Changing the tone

The Obama administration could also do a great deal to change the tone in how the U.S. government talks about Africa in public statements, at the United Nations, and in its policy documents. Major opportunities exist in East and Central Africa, and because expectations are so high throughout Africa, President-elect Obama will have more space than usual to help take the lead in forging a global commitment to end these crises rather than to continue managing their symptoms.

The good news is that we know how to resolve complex conflicts. Working closely with African peacemakers and peace advocates on the ground in war zones throughout the continent, sustained and competent international diplomacy contributed to the end of wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Burundi, and southern Sudan. It helped dismantle apartheid in South Africa and helped guide the birth of the nation of Namibia.

Africa’s remaining wars require outside-the-box thinking in this new era of diminishing resources. The cheapest and most effective instrument we have is vast American experience in peacemaking. The cost-effectiveness of ending wars rather than continuing to manage their symptoms is undeniable. It requires a decision by the incoming president that containing the damage from the status quo is an untenable goal, which must be replaced by a full-scale multilateral effort to resolve Africa’s multiple, interlocking wars. The costs of reassigning diplomats to these war zones (real transformational diplomacy) and appointing a handful of senior officials and envoys where appropriate are relatively negligible when compared with the billions we will continue to spend on clean-up, conflict containment, and counterterrorism in the context of the present “conflict management” approach.

The Obama administration begins it work facing a host of deadly conflicts in Africa and few easy solutions. Yet President Obama also has a historic opportunity to fundamentally reshape relations between the United States and the African continent in a way that will be truly transformational. Many forces and voices within America’s foreign policy bureaucracy will suggest Africa is a problem and an opportunity better left for another day; it will take genuine leadership from the top to make clear that the future is now.

By The Associate Press

From New York Times

MALAKAL, Sudan (AP) — Sudan’s embattled president marked the fourth anniversary of a fragile peace between the country’s north and south, promising on Friday to restore confidence in national unity even as he faces accusations by an international court for war crimes in Darfur.

Omar al-Bashir flew to the small town of Malakal in southern Sudan, where he addressed a crowd of several thousand at a local stadium together with his vice president and former rival, southern leader Salva Kiir.

Both sounded a somber note, putting aside their usual blame-casting over Sudan’s woes, called for reconciliation of all Sudanese and for preserving the 2005 peace deal that ended nearly two decades of civil war between north and south.

The fighting left an estimated 2 million dead. The peace deal created a unity government, established a semiautonomous south, and provided for wealth-sharing. It also envisaged national and presidential elections in 2009 and a referendum in the south on unity in 2011 — a vote that could allow the south to secede.

Al-Bashir urged his countrymen to ”revive the spirit” of the peace deal while Kiir said it is a ”life saving machine that we should never temper with.”

The conflict between Sudan’s north and south is separate from that of Sudan’s troubled western region of Darfur, where fighting since 2003 between ethnic African Darfur tribes and militia backed by the Arab-led Khartoum government has left 300,000 dead and 2.7 million displaced.

The north-south peace deal has mostly held for the past three years, despite occasional flare-ups and the contested oil-rich region of Abyei that both sides claim and which was left unresolved by the agreement.

But many challenges lie ahead. A date for elections scheduled for this year has yet to be set.

Resources have been squandered boosting separate north and south armies while investments in the south have faltered. New fighting in Abyei — which flared up three times in 2008 — could unravel the deal at any time.

A report by London-based think-tank Chatham House said most southerners support separation and that the referendum ”has become the nonnegotiable centerpiece of the whole peace process.”

Meanwhile, al-Bashir is facing genocide charges for his role in the Darfur. Sudan’s government dismisses the accusations while regional experts caution that an arrest warrant against al-Bashir could unravel the north-south peace deal and unleash new violence.

WASHINGTON — With just 15 days left in office, President Bush announced Monday that he had ordered an immediate airlift to deliver vehicles and equipment to the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan to bolster a struggling international peacekeeping effort there.

Mr. Bush waived a requirement that he notify Congress 15 days before undertaking such a mission, because waiting would “pose a substantial risk to human health and welfare,” the White House national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, said in a statement.

The White House said the airlift had been in the planning stages for months. But some human rights activists expressed puzzlement at the timing of the move, a little more than two weeks before the inauguration of Barack Obama. Mr. Obama has vowed more aggressive action in Darfur, including imposition of a no-flight zone, a move Mr. Bush has declined to make.

“It is certainly more than passing strange to have the national security adviser come out and say that this step is being taken and Congressional notification is being waived because of the urgency of the situation in the last two weeks of the administration, when Darfur has been on fire for five years,” said John Norris, executive director of the Enough Project, a group here that campaigns against genocide.

Mr. Bush has long classified the violence in Darfur as genocide; since 2004, hundreds of thousands of people have died and more than a million have been displaced as a result of ethnic and sectarian strife in the region.

Yet the president has wrestled openly with whether or how to use American military power there, and has favored relying on an international force, prompting critics to accuse him of hand-wringing without action.

“There is this question, ‘Why haven’t they done this before?’ ” said Jerry Fowler, executive director of Save Darfur, an advocacy group, adding that the airlift “might be a little bit of last-minute legacy shopping by the administration.”

Asked about the timing of the decision, Dana M. Perino, the White House spokeswoman, replied: “We’re doing what we can as soon as we possibly can. We’ve been working on trying to get the assets in place so that we would be able to actually do it.”

The airlift is intended to support the year-old joint peacekeeping mission of the United Nations and the African Union in Darfur. It will not involve direct American military action or the donation of American supplies.

A spokesman for the United States Africa Command, Vince Crawley, said a small number of American troops would provide protection aboard the two C-17 cargo planes the Pentagon is sending and would remain in Darfur only long enough to unload the aircraft.

Mr. Crawley said the planes would fly from the United States to Rwanda to pick up 75 tons of large vehicles and heavy equipment, belonging to Rwanda, to take to Darfur in the next two to three weeks. Separately, the State Department is to hire a contractor to transport 240 containers of other supplies, currently stuck at Port Sudan.

The United States conducted similar airlifts when the African Union ran the peacekeeping mission, before last January.

A senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said one of Mr. Bush’s “real focuses was, the more peacekeepers and equipment we can get on the ground before he leaves office, the better.”

In his statement on Monday, Mr. Hadley, the national security adviser, said the airlift was “further evidence” that harsh criticism of the Bush administration’s approach in Darfur by Nicholas D. Kristof, an opinion columnist for The New York Times, was inaccurate.

On Dec. 28, Mr. Kristof wrote that the White House had ignored a “menu of options for tough steps to squeeze Sudan,” including destroying its air force, put forth by the administration’s own special envoy to the region, Richard Williamson. Mr. Kristof also accused Mr. Hadley and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of “acquiescence in genocide.”

Mr. Bush has repeatedly expressed frustration with his inability to do more to curb the killing in Darfur. During a visit to Rwanda last year, he spoke in unusually personal terms, after being reminded that his predecessor, Bill Clinton, regretted not intervening in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Referring to his own decision not to send troops to Darfur, Mr. Bush said, “I still believe it was the right decision.” But he acknowledged that by relying on an international force, he had put himself “at the mercy of the decisions of others,” in this case a United Nations effort that “seems very bureaucratic to me, particularly with people suffering.”

If Barack Obama wants to help end the genocide in Darfur, he doesn’t have to look far for ideas of how to accomplish that. President Bush and his top aides have been given, and ignored, a menu of options for tough steps to squeeze Sudan — even destroy its air force — and those will soon be on the new president’s desk.

The State Department’s policy planning staff prepared the first set of possible responses back in 2004 (never pursued), and this year Ambassador Richard Williamson has privately pushed the White House to squeeze Sudan until it stops the killing.

Mr. Williamson, who is President Bush’s special envoy to Sudan, wrote a tough memo to Mr. Bush this fall outlining three particular steps the United States could take to press Sudan’s leader, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir:

• The United States could jam all communications in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. This would include all telephone calls, all cellular service, all Internet access. After two days, having demonstrated Sudan’s vulnerability, the United States could halt the jamming.

• The United States could apply progressive pressure to Port Sudan, from which Sudan exports oil and thus earns revenue. The first step would be to send naval vessels near the port. The next step would be to search or turn back some ships, and the final step would be to impose a quarantine and halt Sudan’s oil exports.

• The United States could target Sudanese military aircraft that defy a United Nations ban on offensive military flights in Darfur. The first step would be to destroy a helicopter gunship on the ground at night. A tougher approach would be to warn Sudan that unless it complies with international demands (by handing over suspects indicted by the International Criminal Court, for example), it will lose its air force — and then if it does not comply, to destroy all its military aircraft on the ground.

Officials frustrated by the administration’s passivity shared these possible steps with me, partly to make clear that Mr. Obama can do more if he has the political will.

Mr. Williamson has been one of the unsung heroes of the Bush administration, fighting tenaciously and secretly — even twice threatening to resign — to redeem American honor by confronting genocide. President Bush himself seemed open to tougher action, officials say, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, always resisted, backed by the Pentagon. Ms. Rice and Mr. Hadley tarnished their own honor and America’s by advocating, in effect, acquiescence in genocide.

The naysayers’ objection was simple: Those are incredibly serious steps, with grave repercussions.

They’re right. But then again, genocide is pretty serious, too.

That’s something that Mr. Obama and his aides understand. Partly for that reason, Sudan fears the Obama administration, and now for the first time in years, there’s a real chance of ousting President Bashir and ending his murderous regime.

Several factors are coming together. The leaders in Khartoum feel their government wobbling, particularly after rebels clashed with government soldiers on the outskirts of Khartoum earlier this year. They know that the International Criminal Court is expected to issue an arrest warrant for President Bashir, probably in February, but that no other top leader will be indicted after Mr. Bashir.

China, which for years has been President Bashir’s most important international supporter, now seems to be backing away — just as it eventually abandoned genocidal friends like Slobodan Milosevic and the Khmer Rouge. And an Arab state, Qatar, is now leading a serious diplomatic initiative to try to end the slaughter.

Thus there are growing whispers that key figures in the Sudanese regime may throw Mr. Bashir overboard in the coming months. The other leaders are ruthless and have blood on their hands as well, but some of them have in the past proved more willing to negotiate deals than Mr. Bashir has.

Hovering in the background is the risk that the north-south war in Sudan will resume, leading to a slaughter even worse than Darfur. One ominous sign is that Sudan is now stockpiling cash and weapons, apparently so that it can wage war on the south even if Port Sudan is blocked.

Mr. Williamson has suggested providing surface-to-air missiles to the separate government of South Sudan. Such weaponry would reduce the chance that Sudan would attack the south.

If Mr. Obama and his aides can work with Europe, China and Qatar to keep the heat on — and to make clear that Sudan has no choice but to hand over President Bashir once the court issues the arrest warrant — then we just might avert a new war and end the first genocide of the 21st century in the new year.

In January, President Bush said this about Darfur: “My administration called this genocide. Once you label it genocide, you obviously have to do something about it.”

Yet, last week — nearly one year later — this is what the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, told the United Nations Security Council about Darfur: “Genocide continues. Rapes in and around the camps continue. Humanitarian assistance is still hindered. More than 5,000 displaced persons die each month.” How can this still be?

The world has long declared its revulsion at the atrocities committed by Sudan’s government and its proxy militias in Darfur and done almost nothing to stop it. It took years of political wrangling to get the Security Council to approve a strengthened peacekeeping force with deployment set for Jan. 1. More than 11 months later, the Security Council has managed to send only 10,000 of the promised 26,000 peacekeepers. Large-scale military attacks against populated areas continue.

Much of the fault lies with Sudan’s cynically obstructionist president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir. But Russia and especially China — which has major oil interests in Sudan — have shamefully enabled him. So have African leaders. The United States and its allies also bear responsibility for temporizing, most recently over how to transport troops and equipment to the conflict zone.

President Bush said on Wednesday that the United States was prepared to provide airlift. So why has this taken so long?

Now, the war crimes charges Mr. Moreno-Ocampo has brought against the Sudanese leader for his role in masterminding Darfur’s horrors (the burning of villages, bombing of schools and systematic rape of woman) may — may — be changing the calculus in Khartoum.

Mr. Bashir recently agreed to peace talks mediated by Qatar and pledged to punish anyone guilty of crimes in Darfur. Until proved otherwise, the world must assume that all of this is theater designed to fool the Security Council into delaying his reckoning at the Hague.

The African Union and the Arab League, seeking to protect one of their own, are pressing the Security Council to delay a formal indictment and arrest warrant, saying it would hurt chances for a negotiated peace. The Bush administration has threatened to block such a move and we hope it stands firm. President-elect Barack Obama and his advisers have called for strong action to end the Darfur genocide. We hope the next administration moves quickly. But have no doubt: Fixing Darfur, which is increasingly engulfed in inter-rebel warfare, gets harder by the day. The indictment, expected in February, is undeniably deserved. United Nations officials say that up to 300,000 people have been killed in the Darfur conflict and that 2.7 million have been driven from their homes.

Still it might be worth delaying if Mr. Bashir called off his murderous militias, stopped obstructing deployment of a strengthened peacekeeping force and began serious peace talks. The world is waiting.

The United Nations relief chief today wrapped up a two-day visit to southern Sudan by calling on international donors to help the region develop basic education and health-care services and quickly build up its road system as it recovers after two decades of civil war.

John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, met President Salva Kiir and other senior officials in the Government of Southern Sudan, which was set up as a result of the 2005 comprehensive peace agreement that ended the north-south civil war.

Mr. Holmes and Mr. Kiir – who met in Juba – discussed the scale of the south’s continuing development needs, as well as mutual concerns about the full implementation of the peace deal, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Mr. Holmes – who is also the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator – also assured southern Sudanese officials of the UN’s ongoing humanitarian support and urged donors to get behind construction and development initiatives.

Southern Sudan is lacking in basic infrastructure as a result of the prolonged civil war, and Mr. Holmes stressed that the capacity of the Government in the region must be built up so it can take over health-care, education and other services.

“A lot of has been achieved since I was last in Juba less than two years ago, but a huge amount remains to be done,” he said. “The UN must be here for the long haul, to support Government leadership, while the international community as a whole has to keep up its spending. Too much rests on the development of the south and the continued health of the north-south relationship for there to be any other option.”

Health care is a particular concern, with southern Sudan experiencing some of the worst child and maternal health indicators in the world, due in part to exceptionally low immunization rates. One in seven women, for instance, dies as a result of causes related to childbirth.

“It is simply unacceptable in the 21st century that women continue to die in childbirth at such rates, and that children and adults die needlessly of preventable diseases like malaria.

“Distributing mosquito nets to all the population, training enough staff and qualified midwives, and getting them out to the rural communities who are in dire need of primary health care: these must be top priorities.”

Mr. Holmes visited Agok, home to some 30,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) who fled Abyei, a town in an oil-rich area of central Sudan that remains in contention between the north and south despite the peace accord.

During their discussions the Under-Secretary-General and Mr. Kiir also emphasized the importance of a rapid solution to the separate conflict still engulfing the Darfur region of western Sudan.

Members of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a notorious rebel group that has waged war against Ugandan Government forces since the mid-1980s and is accused of recruiting children to serve as soldiers or sexual slaves, have long operated out of southern Sudan, which borders Uganda.

Mr. Holmes and Mr. Kiir strongly urged the leadership of the LRA to follow through on promises to sign a peace agreement tomorrow.

The UN relief chief is now in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, for meetings with Government officials, UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). He has already visited Darfur and neighbouring Chad on this visit.

Several UN members have indicated support for suspending a proposed ICC indictment against Mr Bashir if he co-operates in turning Darfur’s delicate peace process into a reality.

In announcing charges against Mr Bashir’s foes, the prosecutor is hoping to show he is even handed.

Mr Bashir was accused of genocide in July, although the ICC has yet to confirm the charge.

Since then the Arab League and the African Union have called on the UN Security Council to use special powers, under Article 16 of the ICC constitution, to suspend the case against Mr al-Bashir.

Four of the five permanent members of the council – Britain, China, France and Russia – have indicated support for the plan.

“In the event the Sudan authorities do change, totally change, their policy,” said French President Nikolas Sarkozy, “France would not be opposed to using, I believe it is, Article 16.”

Stuck in the mud

Human rights groups complain that such a deal would be the kiss of death for international war crimes justice, setting a dangerous precedent.

“An Article 16 deferral will send a message to human rights abusers around the world that justice can be bargained away,” said Sara Darehshori of New York-based Human Rights Watch.

“It can send a signal that impunity can be tolerated.”

The problem for the UN is that the Darfur peace process is stuck in the mud.

Talks between Sudan and more than 12 separate rebel groups have got nowhere and Khartoum is giving scant co-operation over the deployment of an African Union-UN peacekeeping force.

As fighting drags on, the UN is having to care for more than two million Darfur refugees living in vast camps in neighbouring Chad.

Meanwhile, Sudan has refused to hand over two men already indicted for Darfur crimes by the ICC, Humanitarian Affairs
Minister Ahmed Haroun and militia leader Ali Mohamed Ali Abdel-Rahman – known as Ali Kushayb.

And it would be highly unlikely to hand over their president for trial in The Hague.

For many at the UN, suspending Mr Bashir’s genocide charge would be a small price to pay for peace.

But one senior UN diplomat said: “There has to be a very substantial change in Sudan’s co-operation.”
“We’re not getting involved in negotiations.”

American pressure

Rights groups say making an exception with Mr Bashir risks opening the floodgates, with the Central African Republic and Uganda, also subject to ICC investigations, now calling for similar treatment.

ICC supporters have some influential friends.”To put ICC proceedings on hold in Darfur would send a dangerous signal to would-be war criminals that justice is negotiable,” said Louise Arbour, the UN’s former human rights chief.

And writing in the Financial Times, Richard Holbrooke, a former US Balkan envoy and adviser to President-elect Barack Obama, argues:

“Suspension may seem a safer course to follow in the short run, but it will embolden him [Mr Bashir] and other future suspected war criminals.”

An irony not lost on ICC officials is that it was the UN who called them in to investigate Sudan in the first place.

The court had no formal powers to investigate Darfur until, in March 2005, the UN Security Council gave it a mandate.

Now, say ICC supporters, the UN is considering a U-turn because the court has indicted the man many consider responsible for ethnic cleansing estimated to have left some 300,000 dead.

Mr Moreno-Ocampo will hope his call to indict three rebel leaders for the murder of 12 AU peacekeepers in Haskanita, southern Darfur, in September last year will ease criticism from some in the AU that his investigations thus far have been one-sided.

Rights groups are pinning their hopes on the United States, the only member of the Permanent Five that has yet to express a view supporting an Article 16 suspension.

The Bush administration has already commissioned an independent report that concluded genocide had been committed in Darfur, and the cause of Darfur has galvanised both America’s liberals and conservative evangelicals.

In this atmosphere, the incoming Obama administration may find it politically difficult to support any UN move to give Mr Bashir impunity.

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) — The United Nations is investigating “troubling reports” of bombings and fighting in the Darfur region of Sudan in violation of a cease-fire agreed to last week, the organization said Wednesday.

“During the past few days, the United Nations has received troubling reports of aerial bombings near Kutum in northern Darfur, as well as reports of fighting in the area of Tine, western Darfur and along the border with Chad,” said a statement issued by a spokesperson for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

“The secretary-general takes these reports very seriously and calls on all parties to refrain from hostilities, to respect the spirit of the cease-fire recently declared by the government of Sudan and to cooperate with UNAMID [United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur] in investigating these reports.”

Last week, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir agreed to an immediate and unconditional cease-fire in Darfur, where government forces have waged a bloody war against militias — a war that some international critics have characterized as genocide.

The truce was one of several recommendations to come out of a month-long meeting of government officials, Sudanese political leaders, and tribal and rebel leaders from Darfur, according to Mohamed Hussein Zaroug, a Sudanese diplomatic official in London, England.

Al-Bashir announced the cease-fire November 12 in a speech in Khartoum, Sudan. He is under pressure to end the fighting, particularly since he was charged with genocide by the International Criminal Court earlier this year for the government’s campaign of violence in Darfur.

Fighting in the western part of Darfur broke out in 2003, when rebels began an uprising and the government launched a brutal counter-insurgency campaign.

The Sudanese authorities armed and cooperated with Arab militias that went from village to village in Darfur, killing, torturing and raping residents there, according to the United Nations, Western governments and human rights organizations.

The militias targeted civilian members of tribes from which the rebels drew strength.

In the past five years, an estimated 300,000 people have been killed through direct combat, disease, or malnutrition, according to the United Nations.

Another 2.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes because of fighting among rebels, government forces, and the allied Janjaweed militias

JUBA, Sudan– The European Union is ready to bankroll Sudan’s electoral commission, which is tasked with preparing landmark polls laid out in a scheduled democratic transformation, a diplomat said Tuesday.

“The EU is ready to give full support to the commission in terms of financing,” said Italian Ambassador Roberto Cantone.
The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended 21 years of civil war between north and south Sudan, calls for elections no later than 2009 as part of a democratic transition, but there are widespread fears of delays.

“We are aware that there are differing opinions concerning possibility that elections would take place or not,” Cantone said.

“Nevertheless, as EU, we believe the elections are a monumental step, not only for implementation of the CPA, but also reconciliation among people of Sudan,” the diplomat added.

Cantone spoke with EU ambassadors in the southern capital Juba for talks with officials, including the head of the semi-autonomous region, Salva Kiir.

Southern Sudan officials warn that a clean election is nearly impossible in July, owing to the rainy season in the south, ongoing failures to demarcate the border between north and south and delayed census results.

On Monday, Sudan’s national parliament approved an independent electoral commission. That was three months behind schedule after the new electoral law was passed on July 7, two and a half years late.

The line-up of the nine-member commission, appointed by the presidency, is supported by north and south.

President Omar al-Beshir has vowed that elections will be held on time, but some analysts argue that an anticipated international arrest warrant against him for alleged crimes in Darfur could undermine the prospect of polls.

Previous cease-fire attempts have failed to prevent violence. Many say the Sudanese president is trying to prevent a war-crimes indictment.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has proposed a unilateral cease-fire in the troubled Darfur region, including the disarming of progovernment militia blamed for five years of bloodshed that has displaced millions of villagers and drawn in foreign peacekeepers. Some rebel groups in the area immediately dismissed the proposal as an empty gesture. Several previous cease-fire proposals have failed to stem the fighting in Darfur.

Mr. Bashir faces a possible war-crimes indictment in the International Criminal Court (ICC). Wednesday’s proposal appears aimed at persuading the United Nations not to pursue the indictment, as it could jeopardize any peace initiatives. The cease-fire in Darfur is part of a package of measures from a Qatari-backed initiative that rebel groups in Darfur have refused to join.

The BBC reports that the panel’s recommendations are expected to pave the way for a peace conference in Qatar. But any conference is unlikely to succeed unless Darfur’s various rebel groups can be brought into the process.

“I hereby announce our immediate unconditional ceasefire between the armed forces and the warring factions, provided that an effective monitoring mechanism is put into action and observed by all involved parties,” Mr Bashir said.

The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), a key rebel group, told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday that it could not agree to the ceasefire.

However, Sudanese Industry Minister Jalal al-Dugair, a spokesman for the SPI [Sudan People's Initiative, a government-backed peace initiative], told the BBC that the government would launch contacts with the rebel groups to promote the ceasefire.

Last week, the JEM rejected Qatar’s mediation and called for direct one-on-one talks with the Sudanese government, Reuters reported. But a member of the ruling National Congress Party rejected this proposal and said a comprehensive solution was needed that involved all parties, unlike in 2006, when only one Darfur rebel group signed onto a peace accord.

In July, the chief prosecutor of the ICC sought an arrest warrant for Bashir on 10 counts of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Sudan wants the UN Security Council to suspend any legal proceeding for a year and allow Sudan to prosecute Darfur ‘criminals,’ says Agence France-Presse. Arab and African countries have largely sided with Sudan on the issue.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the call for a cease-fire, saying the world expects “concrete progress,” his office said.

Ban “welcomes President Omar al-Beshir’s declaration of an immediate ceasefire between the government of Sudan and the armed movements in Darfur as well as the intention by the government of Sudan to disarm all the militias,” his spokeswoman said in a statement.

Believed to be supported by Khartoum, ethnic Arab militia known as janjaweed are accused of widespread atrocities against African civilians in Darfur where as many as 300,000 people have died since 2003. Rebel groups in the region have called for the disarming of the janjaweed – as well as a pullback of government troops – as a precondition for peace talks, reports the Associated Press. Bashir promised Wednesday to “empower” a joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur as part of the peace plan.

A top official in the peacekeeping force, known as UNAMID, welcomed the agreement and said the U.N. and Qatar would now approach rebel leaders to try to bring them into a cease-fire.

“The government has put something concrete on the table for discussion. It puts on the table … almost all the issues the rebels have demanded,” Ali Hassan, the head of UNAMID in southern Darfur, told The Associated Press.

But Darfur rebel leaders rejected any immediate ceasefire.

Abdulwahid Elnur, the exiled leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement, said the rebels cannot accept any ceasefire until the janjaweed are disarmed.

“We need action not words from them,” he told AP. “It’s not a matter of the ceasefire, it’s a matter of stopping the genocide … We don’t trust these people.”

In an editorial, Saudi-based English-language daily Arab News said Bashir’s proposed cease-fire was commendable, including the call to disarm the janjaweed, though it questioned how this could be achieved. The unsigned editorial pointed out that the cool response from rebel groups was a concern, but should not be used as a reason for inaction by Sudanese authorities.

Khartoum’s move can be seen as a necessary precondition for a more nuanced and considered reaction by the rebels, now split into some 12 different militias. They will all now be coming under pressure from outside players, not least the government of Chad. Indeed it may be no coincidence that only three days ago the Chadian and Sudanese governments ended a six-month rift and normalized relations by once again exchanging ambassadors.

CNN reports that Darfur activists in the US are pushing President-elect Barack Obama to prioritize the troubled region when he takes office in January. John Prendergast, whose ENOUGH campaign is closely affiliated with Obama’s transition co-chairman John Podesta, wants Mr. Obama to appoint a team to focus on Darfur during his first 100 days.

During the presidential campaign, Obama called the crisis in Darfur “a collective stain on our national and human conscience” and said he would make ending it a priority on “day one.”

Obama has promised to appoint a special envoy to deal with the Darfur issue and implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended the decades-long civil war between the North and South.

That agreement could be a model for a peace process in Darfur, Prendergast said. Although the United States does not have to lead the peace process, it could be an active partner in the global effort to develop a strategy for getting the various parties in Sudan together, he said.

The peace deal signed in 2005 between Khartoum and the mineral-rich south is already fraying, as both sides may be bracing for a possible return to fighting, The Christian Science Monitor reports. The war between the two sides lasted 22 years and killed more than 2 million people. Under the 2005 pact, neither side is allowed to reinforce their military without approval from a joint defense panel. But analysts say this is being flouted. The semiautonomous south last month decided to double its budget to cover additional defense spending.

Decades of conflict have left many in the north and the south unable to fully trust one another, leaving many analysts wondering if the current peace will endure.

“This arms race has been going on for some time, with each side anticipating the worst,” says Alex de Waal, a program director at the New York-based Social Science Research Council and a world-renowned expert on Sudan.

KHARTOUM – Sudan’s promise of a ceasefire in Darfur on Wednesday left doubts as to whether it would help bring peace or improve President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s chances of avoiding a possible indictment for alleged war crimes there.

The overriding question is whether Sudan is sincere. Jaded Darfuris have seen past ceasefires fizzle while the fighting continues in Sudan’s remote west. Rebels said the last big ceasefire, announced before 2007 peace talks in Libya, was broken days later when government planes bombed their positions.

Observers say powerful figures in the dominant National Congress Party still believe they can win the Darfur conflict through military means. Any ceasefire would have to hold for several months before it started to gain credibility.

Although President Bashir said the decision did not come with any strings attached, he added that it would come into force “provided an effective monitoring mechanism be put into action and observed by all involved parties”.

That might seem like a technicality, but U.N. officials privately admit there is no effective international ceasefire monitoring system in place in Darfur, even though one was supposed to have been set up under a failed 2006 peace deal. Diplomats wonder whether this could provide a loophole to allow hostilities to continue.

The swift rebel rejection of Bashir’s announcement made it even less likely that the ceasefire will hold.

Darfur rebel groups have been making new alliances and building up forces in recent months. An unprecedented attack on Khartoum by JEM rebels in May also suggested they have secured fresh funding. In a sign of their strength, rebels have attacked government patrols venturing into their territories.

Even if the army and rebels agreed to stop fighting, that still leaves scores of small armed groups in Darfur who are only interested in looting and armed robbery. They would not be bound by the ceasefire. Camps for displaced Darfuris are also increasingly militarised, posing another problem.

It is questionable whether President Bashir could fulfil the promise to disarm Darfur militias since Khartoum is no longer fully in control of many of the armed groups, often described collectively as the Janjaweed, if it ever was. Militias have stormed government strongholds in recent months to demand pay and looted villages in their own raids. Some have shown signs of changing sides.

Sudan’s foreign minister had made clear the government hoped its Darfur initiative would help persuade Western permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to support deferring a possible International Criminal Court war crimes indictment against Bashir, which the court’s prosecutor has requested.

Sudan needs to win over three countries — the United States, Britain and France. All have threatened to veto any attempt to defer a prosecution without serious concessions from Khartoum. The peace proposals outlined by Sudan might be enough to win some diplomats over, particularly if Sudan can show that the lives of ordinary Darfuris are improving. But there are a host of outstanding demands that are not met by today’s report, not least the surrender of a militia leader and a government minister already wanted by the international court.

Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has announced an immediate ceasefire in the Darfur region of western Sudan.

He said his government would start disarming militias and restrict the use of weapons among armed groups.

Darfuri rebel groups did not take part in talks, and analysts have questioned the president’s motivation.
Previous ceasefires have failed, while Mr Bashir has faced intense pressure after an international court prosecutor sought a warrant for his arrest.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor sought to indict him in July on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur.

The BBC’s Amber Henshaw, in Khartoum, says the government hopes this plan will be enough to convince the international community to defer the case against Mr Bashir.

But similar declarations in the past have come and gone without making any difference on the ground in Darfur, she adds.

Up to 300,000 people have died and more than two million have fled their homes in Darfur since 2003.

Rebel groups began the conflict in 2003, but since then militia groups seen as having links to Mr Bashir’s government have been held responsible for waves of violence against civilians.

Monitoring

Mr Bashir made the announcement after hearing the final recommendations of the Sudan People’s Initiative (SPI), a government-backed plan to find peace for Darfur that did not involve any rebel groups.

The recommendations were expected to lay the foundation for a possible peace conference in Qatar.

“I hereby announce our immediate unconditional ceasefire between the armed forces and the warring factions, provided that an effective monitoring mechanism is put into action and observed by all involved parties,” Mr Bashir said.

The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), a key rebel group, told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday that it could not agree to the ceasefire.

However, Sudanese Industry Minister Jalal al-Dugair, a spokesman for the SPI, told the BBC that the government would launch contacts with the rebel groups to promote the ceasefire.

Some diplomats believe the ceasefire announcement is a step in the right direction, our correspondent reports.
But the US charge d’affaires in Khartoum, Alberto Fernandez, told the BBC the challenge now would be to translate good ideas into a improvement on the ground for the people of Darfur.

“That was the challenge before the Sudan’s People’s Initiative, [and] it is still the challenge,” he said.

Multiple factors

Ali Hassan, the head of the Unamid peacekeeping force in southern Darfur, told the Associated Press the Sudanese government was to be praised for putting “something concrete on the table for discussion”.

The proposal puts on the table “almost all the issues the rebels have demanded,” Mr Hassan said, adding that the UN and Qatar would now work to bring the rebels into the ceasefire.

One international observer told our correspondent that it was partly an attempt by the Sudanese government to put pressure on rebel groups to sign up to a 2006 peace agreement, which most rebels rejected.

There are also hopes that the announcement will put pressure on the international community to set up a monitoring force in Darfur, as no such force exists at the moment.

Interviewed by the BBC on Tuesday before Mr Bashir’s announcement, Sudan’s Foreign Minister Deng Alor said any ceasefire would not come as a direct response to the ICC, but might influence it.

“If we come up with the clear roadmap for Darfur, then I think we can have the moral authority to begin to ask… whether they could defer the decision by the ICC,” he said.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – If the International Criminal Court decides to indict Sudan’s president for crimes in Darfur it could ruin a peace process that ended two decades of civil war, a senior U.N. official said on Wednesday.

Khartoum has already said that peace in its war-racked Darfur region would be impossible if the U.N. Security Council does not stop the ICC from indicting Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for genocide and other war crimes in Darfur.

Sudanese officials have suggested that U.N.-African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, known as UNAMID, could be expelled if the judges indict Bashir. A separate U.N. force policing compliance with a peace deal that ended Sudan’s north-south civil war had hoped they would be spared such retaliation.

But U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Edmond Mulet said both UNAMID and the other peacekeeping force in semi-autonomous south Sudan, known as UNMIS, could become targets of revenge if a warrant is issued for Bashir’s arrest.

Mulet told the U.N. Security Council that the ICC chief prosecutor’s request for Bashir’s indictment “could have serious security and other implications for UNMIS and UNAMID.”

“(It) could potentially derail the CPA process,” he said, referring to the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended 20 years of civil war that resulted in the deaths of some 2 million people across Africa’s largest country.

“We are concerned about the suggestions of an uncontrolled reaction to an indictment by the population against UNMIS,” Mulet said.

“We are also concerned by statements of government officials of an intention to expel U.N. staff members … thought to have cooperated with the ICC, even though they are performing their authorized functions as directed by the Security Council,” he said.

DISPUTE OVER OIL REGION

The CPA appeared to be in jeopardy earlier this year when northern and southern troops clashed in the oil-rich region of Abyei. That conflict was eventually defused and UNMIS plans to shift more troops there to prevent a renewal of fighting.

Sudanese nationwide elections are scheduled for next year and a referendum on whether the south should secede from Sudan is expected to take place in 2011. But the status of Abyei and who should have control over the oil wealth remains unresolved.

U.N. officials have told Reuters that if UNMIS is expelled from Abyei, northern and southern Sudanese troops might resume fighting over the region in a bid to seize control of the oil.

In July, ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo charged Bashir with orchestrating a campaign of genocide in the Darfur region beginning in 2003 that has killed 35,000 people outright and at least another 100,000 through starvation and disease.

The charges include war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. U.N. officials say the Darfur conflict has left as many as 300,000 dead and 2.5 million homeless since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms against the government in 2003.

Bashir says the charges against him were fabricated. He has had support from the African Union, Arab League and other alliances, which have urged the Security Council to block the ICC moves to protect the fragile Darfur peace process.

The ICC judges are not expected to make a decision on whether to indict Bashir before January.

The message of Sudan activists all over The United States is clear:

* Don’t try to contain the damage from the war in Darfur—end the war.
* Don’t just declare that genocide is taking place—end the genocide.
* Don’t just manage the consequences of crisis after crisis in Sudan—end these crises.

In short, President-Elect Obama must lead a concerted international peace surge for Sudan, and diplomacy must be backed by well-conceived and consistently escalating pressure on Khartoum and other combatants to create the proper conditions for a lasting peace. More effective protection of civilians and continued steps toward accountability for crimes against humanity, which are vital in their own right, will help advance this peace surge.

Five-and-a-half years into Darfur’s crisis, and three-and-a-half years after the signing of a peace deal for southern Sudan (the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA), there is no prospect of a peace deal for Darfur and no coherent effort to ensure that the CPA gets implemented. This is a damning indictment of U.S. and international efforts in Sudan to date. Despite an abundance of rhetoric, it is clear to all parties, including the Sudanese government, that the United States government and its international partners are content simply to manage the consequences of the crisis in Sudan, rather than resolve the situation.

The costs of this approach have already been immensely painful for the Darfuris, who continue to be killed and driven from their homes in large numbers by government and rebel attacks as a U.N. force is incapable of protecting them. Equally important, without a substantial investment in peacemaking in Darfur and peace implementation for all Sudan, the facts on the ground have the potential to become much worse: Darfur’s war likely will continue to escalate, the CPA may collapse and reopen a direct north-south conflict, many more people may die, rebel groups will become larger and even more lawless, and Sudan will potentially disintegrate as a state. In addition, a wider war could also open up fronts in eastern and northern Sudan; continued war in Darfur will further fuel proxy war in Chad and the Central African Republic; and north-south tensions in Sudan could lead to the Lord’s Resistance Army becoming more active in northern Uganda and southern Sudan. Sudan’s potential fracturing in particular has a range of serious international security implications ranging from disruptions in oil supplies to the increased ability of terrorist groups to operate within such chaotic settings.

Certainly, protecting civilians is an important goal that will require significant energy and resources for the foreseeable future. But it is not sufficient. Protection efforts must be buttressed by a broader approach to end Sudan’s multiple conflicts. Pursuing the goal of civilian protection during the conflict should not obscure or divert energy from the larger and ultimate objective: bringing peace to Sudan by securing a credible deal for Darfur and implementing the terms of the CPA. As the two most influential countries with Sudan and two countries with the most to lose if the CPA collapses, the United States and China have compelling reasons to work jointly for lasting peace.

The CPA itself—the agreement to end the 22-year war in southern Sudan and establish a framework for democratic transformation of the country—was reached in 2005 after a sustained investment in diplomacy, led in part by the United States and backed by significant incentives and pressures. That hard-won agreement would not now be in jeopardy if the investment in diplomacy had been maintained and the international community had continued its pressure to ensure that the agreement was implemented.

KHARTOUM – A recent survey conducted in Khartoum showed that the majority of younger Sudanese prefer US democratic presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama to win Tuesday’s elections.

The government sponsored Sudanese Media Center (SMC) website reported that Khartoum Business FM radio found that 80% of the poll participants’ said they favored Obama, 10% for republican contender Senator John McCain and the remaining said they like neither candidates.

Obama is generally favored worldwide as opposed to McCain owing to his charismatic appeal and the unpopular republican president in the White House.

The democratic candidate heads to the elections tomorrow with a comfortable lead in all national polls so far making him the likely winner.

However this is not necessarily good news for all in Sudan.

The Sudanese ruling National Congress Party (NCP) considers the Democratic Party generally hostile to them. Obama is surrounded by figures considered “hawkish” in their view of the NCP.

Obama’s running mate Joseph Biden for example is a strong proponent of military intervention in the war ravaged region of Darfur.

Despite tense relations between Khartoum and Washington they maintained strong counter-terrorism cooperation. Some US activists even accused the Bush administration of being too lenient on the Sudanese government particularly on the issue of Darfur to preserve the intelligence flow of information.

The Sudanese president in an interview with the daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat last year gave a rare praise to the Bush administration saying they helped foster peace agreement in the South.

The spokesperson for the Sudanese foreign ministry Ali Al-Sadiq said in statements today that they are indifferent to McCain or Obama.

“For us there is no difference between the two. Some refer to the missile attack on Sudan and the pharmaceutical factory” he said.

Al-Sadiq was referring to a decision by former president Bill Clinton to bomb Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan for suspecting that it produced chemical weapons.

Sudan’s foreign minister Deng Alor further said today that “the coming US president could have a new method of dealing, but the policy of the United States is stable”.

Many observers emphasize that foreign policy is likely to take a backseat in the midst of an unprecedented financial crisis that threatens to drown the US into a recession.

KHARTOUM — The U.S. envoy for Africa said Monday that Washington was ready to airlift as many as 4,000 peacekeepers, including Ethiopians and Egyptians, for the joint U.N.-African Union mission to Darfur.

The mission started deploying in Darfur in January but remains at less than half of its 26,000 authorized capacity, and has complained of Sudanese government stonewalling and transport problems.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer, who arrived here from a trip to Congo, said the Sudanese government has made ”important progress” recently in speeding up the deployment of the peacekeepers.

”There has been important progress,” Frazer said. ”But we are looking to get at least 3,000 to 4,000 (peacekeepers) in Darfur. We certainly have offered the U.N. to help do airlift if they need to bring in both troops and to move equipment.”

After Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was accused of genocide in Darfur in July, authorities here eased some procedures including issuing visas for promised troops. The move was an apparent response to Western demands for cooperation with the international community.

Al-Bashir dismisses the charges brought against him by the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, and says his country won’t recognize the tribunal. But al-Bashir and his government are also lobbying supporters and others to freeze the international prosecution.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Deng Alor said the U.S. offer to help ferry more troops and equipment into Darfur was first made in September, during Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha visit to New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly.

Alor said his government welcomed the U.S. airlift which he expects to take place soon.

”I was told anytime from now they will start transporting equipment for Ethiopian and Egyptian troops,” Alor told The Associated Press.

Officials of the U.N.-AU mission in Darfur, known as UNAMID, say they expect their deployment to reach 15,000 uniformed personnel by the end of this year, or 60 percent of authorized capacity. That boost will be comprised mostly of Egyptian and Ethiopian peacekeepers.

The mission officials have scaled back their expected 80 percent deployment target, citing deteriorating security. The force stands now at 11,500 troops.

The Darfur conflict began in early 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against Sudan’s Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination. Many of the worst atrocities in the war have been blamed on the janjaweed militia of Arab nomads allied with the government.

U.N. officials say the only way to end the fighting that has killed up to 300,000 people and forced 2.5 million to flee their homes is through political talks and a peace agreement.

KHARTOUM – Sudan’s president, accused of genocide by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), launched a national initiative on Thursday to bring peace to Darfur.

Rebels dismissed the move by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir as a public relations trick and boycotted the launch.

But Bashir, addressing top delegates from the Arab League, the African Union, Egypt, Libya and Qatar, along with several Sudanese political parties, said the initiative was serious. “Despite the difficulties and obstacles … we declare our determination to reach a final solution this time,” he said.

Bashir said the solution would be based on principles which included ending the violence and supporting the voluntary repatriation of hundreds of thousands of displaced people who have fled their homes since the Darfur conflict flared in 2003.

Government officials said the various Sudanese parties that are part of the initiative will hammer out recommendations on how to resolve the conflict next week.

Darfur rebels said Bashir was merely trying to avoid the issuing of an ICC arrest warrant by showing the world he was trying to resolve the conflict.

“They just want to gain time,” said Abdel-Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, head of one faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM). “They want to show that there is a peace process … but the fact on the ground is that they are killing people.”

Aid Convoys

Bashir pledged more cooperation with the joint United Nations and African Union force in Darfur, known as UNAMID, to secure the passage of aid convoys, along with up to $350 million of spending on development in the region until the end of 2009.

The Arab League and African Union (AU) are leading efforts to prepare the ground for yet another round of peace talks between the Sudanese government and rebel groups, this time in Qatar.

Djibril Bassole, the joint U.N./AU mediator for Darfur, noted the rebel boycott but said Bashir’s effort was key to bring about peace.

“I believe that this initiative is the main initiative because for peace we need the commitment of the government, and this initiative is a very good commitment,” he said.

Alberto Fernandez, the U.S. charge d’affaires in Sudan, was more skeptical.

“If it is a true process, if this is the beginning of a true change, a substantive change in the way Darfur has been handled, then it would be supported by people,” he said.

“But there is a problem. The government lacks credibility because of the last five years. So there is doubt in the minds of many people … That doesn’t mean that it can’t be overcome.”

International experts estimate more than five years of fighting in Darfur has claimed the lives of 200,000 people since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms against the government. Sudan puts the death count at 10,000 and accuses the international media of exaggerating the conflict.

The crisis took a new turn earlier this year when the chief prosecutor of the ICC asked judges to issue an arrest warrant for Bashir, accusing him of masterminding a campaign of genocide in Darfur. Sudan says it does not recognise the court.

The Arab League and the African Union have urged the U.N. Security Council to block any indictment of Bashir to avoid shattering the attempts to end the conflict in Darfur.

But rebel groups said they had doubts about the impartiality of any Arab-led effort to end the crisis.

“We need to be convinced that they are an impartial party first,” said Suleiman Jamous, a leading member of the Sudan Liberation Army/Unity faction.

Ambassador Duncan posted the following on his blog after participating in a panel discussion with Valentino Achak Deng about an international arms treaty, during the UN’s First Committee General Assembly in New York in September 2008.

The highlight of my week was definitely being able to share a platform with Valentino Deng a former “Lost Boy” from Sudan and now a successful author in the US.

Valentino was only a boy when I worked in Sudan in the 80s, but his story vividly illustrates how the lives of ordinary people are affected by armed conflict. Separated from his parents he walked over 800 miles through the war zone of southern Sudan and then spent over a decade in a refugee camp in Northern Kenya.

We have heard a lot about the Millennium Development Goals over the last few weeks in the UN General Assembly; at their heart an effort to give ordinary people across the world a better quality of life. But unless we tackle the lack of regulation in the arms trade we are going to find these efforts constantly undermined as weapons flow into conflict zones exacerbating and prolonging those conflicts.

Valentino spoke quietly and eloquently about his extraordinary journey, of the Lost Boys being attacked by helicopter gunships and fighters, of burying his friends along the way and then of his struggle for education along with thousands of other refugees in Kenya. His is one of the human stories that explains the real purpose and meaning to our work. Something well worth remembering as we argued over the precise wording of the draft Resolutions this week.

NAIROBI, Kenya — The Sudanese government has arrested one of the most wanted men in the country, a notorious janjaweed militia leader charged by an international court with orchestrating mass murder in Darfur, Sudanese officials disclosed on Monday.

The move is widely being interpreted as a way for Sudan to improve its image abroad and try to head off the possible genocide prosecution of the country’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, in the International Criminal Court.

Human rights groups have said the militia leader, Ali Kushayb— also known as Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman and the “colonel of colonels” — led attacks on civilians and ordered villages to be burned to the ground and the women in them raped.

In 2007, the International Criminal Court charged him with crimes against humanity and demanded that Sudan hand him over. Sudan refused, denying that he had done anything wrong and insisting that any criminals it did arrest would be handled in its own courts.

But with Sudan under increasing pressure to curb the violence in Darfur and Mr. Bashir being pursued by international prosecutors, the government appears to have changed its tack. Mr. Kushayb is now in police custody, said Rabie A. Atti, a government spokesman, without disclosing where he was being kept. Nor did he say whether the government would turn the militia leader over to the international court.

“We are investigating him to see if he has committed crimes in Darfur or not,” Mr. Rabie said Monday evening.

Shortly afterward, Sudan’s justice minister reiterated the government’s longstanding position that it would conduct its own trials for war crimes suspects, according to The Associated Press.

In July, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague formally requested an arrest warrant for Mr. Bashir, saying that he had “masterminded” massacres in Darfur and that he should stand trial for genocide. The judges in The Hague are deliberating whether to push ahead with the prosecution. African and Arab leaders are urging the court to drop the case, arguing that it could unleash a backlash against civilians and aid workers and lessen the dim prospects for peace in Darfur, a region in western Sudan where hundreds of thousands of people have died in a complex conflict that seems to have no end.

In August, Sudanese officials said they had been offered a deal by France in which they would hand over another suspect, Ahmad Harun, a government minister accused by the international court of war crimes, in exchange for a suspension of Mr. Bashir’s prosecution. In that light, the arrest of Mr. Kushayb could be a compromise on a compromise. Instead of giving up a government minister who is suspected of committing wide-scale atrocities, the Sudanese have chosen to arrest a tribal leader who is one degree of separation away from the government.

Analysts said the arrest might help the Sudanese authorities appear to be cooperating, without going after one of their own.

“Whilst my heart hopes that this is the start of a real, Sudanese-led, judicial process, my head tells me it’s yet another ploy by Khartoum to buy some time,” said James Smith, chief executive of Aegis Trust, an antigenocide group.

But when asked if Mr. Kushayb had become a bargaining chip, Mr. Rabie said no.

“This is not something for show,” he said. “This is part of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s commitment to bring a final and comprehensive solution to Darfur.”

The Sudanese polity runs on political credit notes. The big issues are constantly deferred because the political price of coming to a decision is too high, with cash paid only for interim settlements to try to manage the crisis. Over the last five and a half years, the government in Khartoum has not wanted to pay the price demanded by Darfur’s rebel leaders, believing that the insurrection will disintegrate and international concern will fade, allowing it to settle for a cheaper price. As earlier with the South, it miscalculated and the price of a settlement has risen year on year. Twenty one years ago the Islamists launched their coup to pre-empt a compromise on Islamic law and ended up conceding self-determination for the South. They launched the Darfur firestorm to avoid conceding a power-sharing formula to Darfur and may well end up facing the ICC. It’s time to settle the Darfur account at the asking price.

The last week at the General Assembly was a sobering experience for the Sudan government delegation. Before arriving in New York, Khartoum expected that a deal on deferral of the ICC arrest warrant against President Bashir was on the cards. Achieving the momentum for a year’s deferral under Article 16 was their minimum agenda. Departing back to Khartoum for the Eid, the delegation was resigned to the reality that the arrest warrant will go ahead—delayed only by the internal procedures of the Pre-Trial Chamber in The Hague. A deferral is the maximum that Sudan can hope for, and that depends upon unexpected developments in its favour.

The NCP has delegated responsibility for fending off the ICC to the African Union and the Arab League. Sudan certainly has a lot of sympathy in the two regional bodies and among their member states. The AU and Arab League can certainly shut out the ICC (and probably will), but this doesn’t bring much benefit to Khartoum. It is modest solace that pariah status in the west will be mitigated by the solidarity of neighbours (an important contrast from the 1990s). Being chosen as leader of the G77 is just a consolation prize—nothing more than an opportunity for giving some spin to the setbacks in the national media in time for the Eid.

At present, none of the routes to a deferral of the arrest warrant seem feasible. And in fact—as so often with policies towards Sudan—the lack of clarity and coordination among international efforts spells delay. The decision-makers in Khartoum are likely to spend much of their time figuring out what is the real agenda among the leading international players (especially the U.S. and secondarily Britain and France) rather than getting to grips with solving the issue.

As I discussed last week, there is no indication that any of the P3 are close to seeing their conditions satisfied.

The prime candidate for securing a deferral would be a credible peace process for Darfur. The Sudan Government cannot deliver on a workable peace process on its own—it needs the rebels to be serious as well. But it can make unilateral moves to demonstrate its commitment (accepting that any good faith concessions may be brushed off by a skeptical international reaction). The Qatar government has recently stepped into the ring with a proposal to facilitate a Darfur peace conference, and is pressing Khartoum to make some major gestures in Darfur. This may in due course result in progress towards peace, but—and it is a crucial proviso—the necessary preparatory work is done to build confidence that the peace process is for real. This preparatory work will take many months. The ICC Chief Prosecutor has made it clear that he is not ready to reconsider or delay the process he has set in motion. Sympathetic though they are to the Qataris, none of the P3 is going to cast its vote in favour of deferral solely on the basis of this initiative.

The Qatar initiative has many positive aspects, not least the possibility that the Qataris themselves may provide some of the resources necessary for it to work. But waiting for progress in Qatar could readily become a reason for the NCP to succumb to its default mode of the politics of delay.

A second route to a deferral is for Sudan to mount sufficiently serious prosecutions in domestic courts that it can credibly claim that the ICC has no jurisdiction, invoking Articles 17 and 19 of the Rome Statute. The African Union has promised cooperation on this front, both in the form of a High-Level Panel and also African judges to preside in the courts.

This initiative also has many positive aspects. But it falls far short of what would be needed for a credible challenge to the ICC’s jurisdiction. The record of domestic investigations and prosecutions is so bad that Sudan has a huge credibility gap to fill before it can be judged to have made any progress forward. There has been little progress on this initiative in the last two months and a huge acceleration is needed to show any glimmer of hope. And the ICC’s lawyers can always argue that Articles 17 and 19 should only be invoked if there is a serious effort to prosecute President Bashir in a domestic court—which is inconceivable.

In these circumstances, the NCP leaders in Khartoum will be tempted to lapse into a fatalistic attitude and argue that there is nothing that they can do which will satisfy the appetites of the P3 and the ICC, so their only option is to adopt a defensive posture and give nothing away. That would be an error. Leadership is needed for Khartoum to press ahead on both fronts undistracted by the inevitable micro-criticisms.

The Sudan Government should look carefully at the coinage of the expressions of understanding of its predicament and the criticisms of the ICC and its friends. Africa, the Arab world, much of Asia and many western diplomats and analysts are appalled at the misjudgements that have marked international policy towards Sudan. But double-standards and errors by Khartoum’s adversaries do not provide any alibi for the Sudan government’s own disastrous blunders. Most of those who press for a different international policy towards Sudan do so because they believe that stability is important, and that overthrowing the ‘devil you know’ often leads to a much worse outcome. This means dealing with the powers-that-be. By the same token, Sudan must deal with the reality of international power, with all its unappealing features. International policies won’t falter just because the analysis is wrong and the proposals are reckless. The reality is that the pressure on the NCP will not relent whatever it does, and yet Khartoum’s only option is to pay a price that it considers unfairly high and still not get the credit for it.

When a solution comes to Sudan’s crisis it will surely have the following features. First, the NCP will pay a high price, politically and financially. Less of the payment will be credit notes, more cash. Second, the longer the NCP waits it higher the price will be. And last, it will be a Sudanese solution that involves trade-offs and compromises that mean that the UN and western governments don’t recognize it as a solution. The payoff of a solution will be mostly domestic, not international. But it’s still worth it.

As the United Nations General Assembly meets this week in New York, the crisis in Sudan is front and center on the agenda. Following the International Criminal Court, or ICC, chief prosecutor’s request for an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese government launched a diplomatic offensive to pressure the United Nations Security Council to suspend the ICC investigation. The African Union and Arab League have lined up in support of Khartoum’s position, and even ICC supporters such as France and the United Kingdom have suggested that holding war criminals to account in Darfur might derail efforts to end the crisis. They couldn’t be more wrong.

The fact is, the ICC’s request for an indictment creates a new opening for peace, the first of three significant opportunities that the international community must urgently seize. With the ICC’s move, President Bashir and his government are finally confronting real consequences for their actions, consequences that go well beyond the harsh rhetoric and empty threats that have characterized the world’s response since 2003. This time it is different because the threat of an arrest warrant is potent enough to inform the calculations of a government that is as pragmatic as it is reprehensible. The second opportunity is the renewed prospect of an inclusive peace process for Darfur. The third is a drive toward national elections in 2009 and a self-determination referendum for southern Sudan in 2011, which will concentrate Sudanese and international actors on implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA.

Meanwhile, the status quo in Sudan remains disastrous. It is beyond the pale that governments around the world are pressing to suspend the ICC case while Bashir’s government attacks international peacekeepers and, in yet another perverse twist, mounts a new offensive strategy centered on direct military attacks against the desolate camps that are home to Darfur’s displaced civilians. Citing increased insecurity, the U.N. World Food Program recently announced that it could halt food shipments to some areas of Darfur just when displaced persons are most in need. U.N. member states continue to sell sophisticated weaponry to the Sudanese government, whose forces have recently launched a new offensive against Darfur’s rebels. And the CPA remains under serious duress, with profound implications for the future of Sudan’s very existence as a state.

Circumstances are dire, but deep crises can present distinct opportunities. With both Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) likely to pursue a more aggressive policy toward Khartoum than President George W. Bush, the Sudanese government has a new incentive to resolve the crisis. In the waning days of the Bush administration and during the transition to a new government, the United States must demonstrate leadership and clarity of purpose to leverage these opportunities into genuine progress toward democratic transformation and sustainable peace. The grim alternative is a destructive new phase in Sudan’s civil wars.


Opportunity One—An injection of real leverage

The request for a criminal indictment of President Bashir gives the United States unprecedented leverage over the Sudanese government and, potentially, Darfur’s rebel groups.

Article 16 of the Rome Statute, the charter that established and governs the ICC, enables the Security Council to suspend an ICC investigation on a one-year renewable basis—if such a move is deemed in the interest of peace. The Sudanese government’s preoccupation with the ICC charges indicates that Bashir and his inner circle view international justice as a serious threat, and the actions of Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo have given Bashir a vested interest in reaching a peace deal in Darfur, possibly for the first time since the crisis began. Recent history makes clear that Khartoum changes its behavior only when faced with tangible penalties. In three instances—Khartoum’s cooperation in the “war on terror,” its suspension of support for slave-raiding, and its willingness to negotiate an end to the war in southern Sudan—the regime shifted policy because its diplomatic adversaries drew a line in the sand.

The full-court press by Sudan and its allies in the African Union and Arab League to suspend the investigation has been accompanied by weak knees in Paris and London, placing the United States firmly in the driver’s seat at the United Nations Security Council. In late August, U.S. diplomats met in London with their British and French counterparts and sent an unambiguous message that, absent significant behavior change in Khartoum, the United States would block an Article 16 resolution in the Security Council.

France and the United Kingdom are not opposed to international justice per se. Rather, their willingness to consider Article 16 is borne out of a fear that Sudan’s diplomatic strategy could strike a blow against international justice if (and it remains a big if) Arab and African nations react to an indictment by withdrawing from the ICC Charter. Khartoum dispatched envoys around the globe to lobby leaders in a variety of fora—from regional bodies like the African Union and Arab League to this week’s General Assembly—in favor of Article 16 suspension. And it is working to a degree: AU Chief and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete recently traveled to Khartoum to express the AU’s support for Article 16. As disillusioning as it is to see the president of Tanzania—which invaded Uganda in 1979 to halt Idi Amin’s reign of terror—lobbying for an accused war criminal, the deafening silence from the ICC’s main backers in Europe has amplified boisterous opposition by some Arab and African leaders. As a permanent member of the Security Council, it is up to the United States to set clear and non-negotiable benchmarks that the government of Sudan must meet prior to any consideration of Article 16. These should include a peace agreement for Darfur, dismantling government-backed militias, unrestricted deployment of a more effective peacekeeping force to Darfur, and full implementation of the CPA. To date, the Sudanese government has made no credible progress on these major benchmarks.

Khartoum also appeared to have rallied internal support against the ICC following the chief prosecutor’s move and formed a “crisis committee” to deal with the ICC. However, cracks are beginning to show. One member of the crisis committee, Sudanese Foreign Minister Deng Alor, argues that the ICC’s move is a good thing for Sudan: “[The ICC] is a healthy thing, because for the first time it is generating a serious, real national debate. Until now, it has been difficult to say things against the ruling [party].” Alor is a member of the Southern People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM, the ruling National Congress Party’s, or NCP’s, partner in the Government of National Unity. Senior NCP officials have reacted angrily to Alor’s outspokenness, but Alor insists that he is merely saying what many non-NCP ministers are afraid to say.

While Chief Prosecutor Ocampo presented a public case against Bashir, he also may have presented additional confidential cases against some of Bashir’s henchmen, such as his top adviser Nafie Ali Nafie, his security chief Salah Gosh, his defense minister Abdel-Rahim Hussein, and Sudan’s Second Vice President, Ali Osman Taha. The precedent exists: The Court issued sealed arrest warrants against Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony in Uganda and Congolese rebel and former Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba, among others. The possibility that other warrants could be (or perhaps have already been) issued will only further focus individuals within the ruling party on steps it must take to have the investigation suspended or calculate how best to save their own skins. NCP ministers have begun to express their anger: Several ministers resigned following the recent attack on the Kalma refugee camp by government forces.

Leaders of the Justice and Equality Movement, or JEM, and factions of the Sudan Liberation Movement, or SLM, have applauded the move to bring charges against Bashir, but the ICC is rightly not taking sides. Chief Prosecutor Ocampo has stated that he will prosecute rebel commanders for attacks against AU peacekeepers at Haskanita in 2007. By putting the rebels on notice, Ocampo has created an additional point of influence. There is a precedent in this respect as well. In Uganda, the ICC’s arrest warrants against rebel leader Joseph Kony and his lieutenants were a decisive factor in pushing Kony into direct negotiations with the Ugandan government. Although Darfur rebel leaders will likely scoff at the notion of negotiating with an accused war criminal such as Bashir, they might reconsider if the alternative is sharing a cell with him in The Hague.


Opportunity Two—A new Darfur peace process

The final demise of the Darfur Peace Agreement, a new joint mediator for Darfur, and the coalescence of Darfur Diaspora and civil society around a clear set of demands pave the way for an inclusive peace process.

The Security Council is consumed with the possibility of an ICC arrest warrant for President Bashir and the lagging pace of UNAMID deployment, but the key to lasting peace in Darfur is an inclusive peace agreement that ends the conflict and allows displaced persons to return safely to their villages and rebuild their lives. Yet at a meeting of former U.S. Secretaries of State last week in Washington, D.C., our most senior diplomats sparred over the U.S. obligation to intervene militarily in Darfur and, given deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, our ability to do so. Scant mention of the need for political talks. Largely neglected by the council, the Darfur peace process is in shambles.

Negotiations have been stalled for months for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the United States’ stubborn insistence that the Darfur Peace Agreement, or DPA, is the road map for peace in Darfur. As ENOUGH has consistently argued, the DPA is inadequate, incomplete, and cannot bring lasting peace to Darfur. Only one rebel faction—the SLA group led by Minni Arko Minnawi—signed the deal. This accelerated the splintering of the non-signatory rebel factions along ethnic lines and pushed the conflict in a dangerous new direction. While the armed groups multiplied and reconfigured themselves, Khartoum’s allied militias felt betrayed and began fighting each other over the spoils of war. The intercommunal violence and anarchic conditions that followed played directly into Khartoum’s hands, affording the regime plausible deniability while Darfur “destroyed itself.” According to the United Nations, 830,000 civilians have been displaced since the DPA was signed on May 5, 2006.

Even if all parties had signed, the DPA never had a chance because the pressing concerns of the people of Darfur—notably dismantling the Janjaweed militias—were not adequately addressed. However, the DPA’s international backers kept it on life support. The United States, United Kingdom, and African Union all sent high-level envoys to hammer home a deal between the government and Minnawi, who later visited with President George W. Bush at the White House while the State Department trumpeted the DPA as an end to the war. As post-DPA violence escalated, the United States, the African Union, and the Security Council continued to call for implementation of an agreement that was plainly not implementable. Worse, the DPA severely hamstrung peacemaking efforts, which were largely aimed at cajoling the rebels to sign a flawed deal they had already rejected.

Now it appears that Minnawi is preparing to vacate his position as an advisor to President Bashir and formally withdraw from the DPA. In a phone interview with ENOUGH on September 10, Minnawi complained bitterly about the targeting of his forces during the government offensive in Darfur and expressed anger and frustration over the lack of implementation of the DPA. He has spent several weeks in Darfur consulting with other rebel factions, and appears ready to make a formal political alliance with other SLA factions and, perhaps, military cooperation with JEM. As the sole rebel signatory, Minnawi’s departure would be the final nail in the DPA’s coffin and force the international community to get fully behind a more inclusive new process.

With the inadequacies of peace efforts so completely exposed, the United Nations and African Union had no choice but to take action. In July, Burkina Faso Foreign Minister Djibril Bassolé took over as the single mediator for the Darfur peace talks. Bassolé is an experienced negotiator—most recently helping to broker a 2007 peace agreement in Cote d’Ivoire—and early signs suggest that he is taking a deliberate and realistic approach. At the same time, Bassolé speaks neither English nor Arabic, and the African Union and United Nations have inexplicably put their own mediator at an immediate disadvantage. Undaunted, Bassolé has taken English classes, and with proper support from the international community—a full-time team with expertise in all of the relevant issues under negotiation, backing from a group of countries with leverage on the government and the rebels, and strong support from the Security Council—he could construct a new negotiations process that has a real chance of success.

The conventional wisdom about Darfur is that the splintering of rebel factions has resulted in a vacuum of political authority and the absence of a viable Darfurian interlocutor for peace negotiations. However, this analysis wrongly assumes the rebels to be Darfur’s only representatives. Indeed, the many failed attempts to negotiate a settlement to the crisis all lacked inputs from one of the most important stakeholder groups: the people of Darfur. Darfurians have responded, and in recent months the efforts of civil society groups inside Sudan and in the Diaspora have begun to bear fruit. In the United States, a wider umbrella of Darfuri organizations that calls itself the Darfur Leadership Network, or DLN, has worked with several organizations (under the auspices of the Save Darfur Coalition) to establish a platform that, if adopted by a broad group of stakeholders, will consolidate these efforts around a single road map for peace.

Bassolé and his team can succeed where the DPA process failed by working closely with the DLN and other groups to lay the ground work for inclusive talks. While the new leverage provided by the ICC could compel the government to negotiate, and potential indictments against rebel leaders (along with efforts to reduce Chadian support) could push the rebels to the table, all sides need to see a much more focused process than previous efforts or they will not take it seriously. It is up to the Security Council and the countries with the most influence on the parties—the United States, United Kingdom, France, and China—to provide strong support for new negotiations, possibly through a contact group.


Opportunity Three—National elections and southern self-determination

Two landmark events—national elections in 2009 and a southern referendum on independence in 2011—focus Sudanese and international actors on implementation of the CPA and achieving lasting peace.

In the immediate aftermath of the ICC warrant request, President Bashir rallied to his defense many disparate elements from inside and outside Sudan. From some Sudanese opposition parties, to reliable protectors like China and the Arab League, to unfortunate backers Rwandan President Paul Kagame and outgoing South African President Thabo Mbeki—all express support for a suspension of the ICC investigation through Article 16. But this wagon-circling will not last long. By establishing a timetable for elections, the CPA seeks to give Sudanese citizens more control in how their country is governed. National elections are scheduled for 2009, when Sudanese will vote for the Presidency of the Government of National Unity, the Presidency of the Government of Southern Sudan, the National Assembly in Khartoum, the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly in Juba, 25 state legislatures, and 25 state governors. In 2011, the CPA allows southern Sudanese to vote on whether to remain part of a united Sudan, or pursue self-determination. The question for southern Sudan is a simple one: Why would we want to remain as part of Sudan? Khartoum has yet to provide a compelling answer. However, there is the real possibility that Khartoum would launch another war to avoid letting southern Sudan exercise its peace agreement rights to vote for secession. With the clock ticking, all actors—Sudanese and international—have strong motivations to prevent this nightmare scenario.

Sudan’s most powerful backer, China, has perhaps the greatest incentive to avoid a wider war. A sober analysis of China’s economic interests in Sudan leads to an inevitable conclusion: The cost of a full-scale war in Sudan cannot justify China’s unwavering support for the National Congress Party. The bulk of China’s $8 billion investment in Sudan’s oil industry is concentrated in southern Sudan, and rebels there will almost certainly target Chinese oil installations should there be a return to war. Additionally, the Chinese-built oil pipeline runs through the Nuba Mountains, Kordofan, and eastern Sudan—all potential flashpoints. Seen in this light, China can only protect its investments by working to avoid a return to war and to encourage full implementation of the CPA. If pragmatic heads prevail in Beijing, an unlikely partnership between China and the United States could be in the offing.

The parties and the guarantors to the CPA promised to “make unity attractive” for all Sudanese, but the deeply engrained mistrust, the death of SPLM leader John Garang, the NCP’s response to Darfur, and slow implementation of the CPA have done just the opposite. Opinion polling indicates that southern Sudanese will vote overwhelmingly for independence if given the chance in 2011. Nothing concentrates the minds of diplomats like the possibility of a new state, and it is clear that the international community is now on track for a crisis in Sudan even larger than that of Darfur. A comprehensive approach to power-sharing remains the only way the international community is likely to avoid a prolonged and bloody war that will engulf most of Sudan over time. The CPA guarantees southerners the right to independence from the North, and the international community has an obligation to support the will of the southern Sudanese. At the same time, new states seldom emerge without a period of turbulence, or, in the nearby case of Eritrea, conflict with its neighbors. Southern Sudan would likely be no exception, and international obligations extend well after the referendum to assist southern Sudan in addressing multiple challenges. The South is desperately poor, landlocked, and underdeveloped, with considerable governance issues. Adding to its development deficit, southern Sudan abuts three of the most volatile conflict systems in Africa—the Great Lakes, the Horn of Africa, and the Chad basin—and its ability to manage relations with neighbors (least of all the North) will be tested.

Within Sudan, Salva Kiir, the President of South Sudan and First Vice President in the Government of National Unity, is reserving the right to challenge Bashir for the presidency in 2009. This could further destabilize the already fragile partnership that the CPA established between Kiir’s SPLM and Bashir’s NCP. As the election nears, the SPLM’s strategists will almost certainly seek alliances with northern opposition parties. In response to Kiir’s candidacy, the NCP has begun to co-opt and intimidate northern opposition leaders. Using its monopoly over commercial interests, the NCP has already pressured 70 leaders of the middle-class Democratic Unionist Party to rally behind Bashir. It appears also that the NCP has co-opted Sadig Al-Mahdi, Sudan’s former prime minister and head of the Umma Party, by framing the election as a battle between the traditional Arab-Islamic base and the Afro-secular majority of the country. Presidential advisor Nafie Ali Nafie is unambiguous about NCP strategy: “It is legitimate to pillage from other parties. It is an old practice of all political parties around the world.”

Yet while the NCP may succeed in capturing endorsements from the opposition political class, it will have a much more difficult time convincing opposition rank-and-file to re-elect Bashir. And the possibility that Bashir might be an indicted war criminal on election day could further isolate him, as Sudanese politicians attempt to disassociate themselves. Other cracks in the regime are beginning to show. While JEM’s lightning attack in May on the Khartoum suburb Omdurman may have been of limited military significance, it was a severe blow to the NCP’s authority and credibility. The regime’s bedrock has traditionally been a labyrinthine network of security services; Sudanese live in fear of the domestic spy agencies, secret police, and ghost houses. In taking the fight directly to the capital, JEM exposed holes in the regime’s defenses and alarmed many Sudanese, particularly major players within the ruling party.

The Sudanese government is strong enough militarily to retain power in the short term, but this reputational damage cannot be undone. It is unlikely that JEM could have made it undetected from Darfur to Khartoum without inside help, and the regime was so paranoid about mutiny that it held the army in its barracks and used its secret police to fend off the attack. With JEM and other Darfur rebel factions reportedly gearing up for another run at the capital in the coming months, Bashir and his lieutenants will come under increasing pressure from within Khartoum and from its international supporters to negotiate a solution.

Conclusion

The Bush administration is entering lame duck territory, but the Sudanese government is acutely aware that neither Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) nor Senator John McCain (R-AZ) will take a softer line on Darfur or the issue of southern Sudan. Quite the opposite, both McCain and Obama have advocated NATO-enforcement of a no-fly zone in Darfur, and Senator McCain has discussed the right of both southern Sudan and Darfur to self-determination. In addition, McCain has raised the possibility of providing southern Sudan with air defense systems if it splits from northern Sudan. In short, Sudan’s government has more incentive now to make a peace deal than probably ever before. If events continue on the current track, both the Sudanese government and the international community are headed for an escalating military confrontation. The huge opportunities for peace outlined above must be acted upon before it is too late for millions of Sudanese people.

LIBREVILLE — Sudan and Chad are to restore diplomatic relations, which broke off in May, mediators said Tuesday, paving the way to create a peacekeeping and security force on their common border.

The contact group, which comprises Gabon, Libya, Congo, Senegal, Eritrea, Chad and Sudan, issued a statement Tuesday confirming the breakthrough, five months after Khartoum severed ties accusing Ndjamena of backing rebels in its Darfur region.

“Fruitful exchanges have enabled the firm commitment of Chad and Sudan to formally restore diplomatic relations with the exchange of ambassadors before the contact group’s sixth meeting in October in Ndjamena,” it said.

The statement came after a contact group meeting on Friday to discuss the issue in the Eritrean capital Asmara.

The meeting also decided to finalise preparations for a security force of 1,000 Sudanese and 1,000 Chadian soldiers to protect observers who would monitor the border.

“The contact group is committed to deploying a peacekeeping and security force as soon as possible and open an operational command centre in Tripoli,” the Libyan capital, the statement said.

The details on the organisation of the security forces still have to be “finalised”, Chad’s Foreign Minister Moussa Faki told AFP on Tuesday.

“We will have to finalise all that,” Faki said by telephone from Libreville. “The principle has been agreed. Chad supplies 1,000 men and Sudan supplies another 1,000.”

But Faki ruled out further joint operations between Chad and Sudan, except those carried out under the control of EUFOR, the EU’s peacekeeping mission which has a presence in central Africa.

Chadian rebels welcomed the agreement but threatened to take arms again if “a true peace process was not set in motion,” rebel leader Abderaman Koulamallah told AFP.

“We reiterate our desire for a true peace process in Chad. If there is no peace process, there will be war,” he said.

Sudan broke off diplomatic relations with Chad in May after Darfur rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) launched an attack near the capital Sudanese capital, Khartoum.

Chad denied any involvement but relations between the two countries have long been difficult, with each country denying the other’s accusations that they are supporting rebel movements fighting against their respective regimes.

“Sudan needs to sort out the problem of Darfur and stop trying to make itself believe that Chad is part of the problem,” Faki said.

The two countries also broke off diplomatic relations in 2006 for four months after a rebel attack on Chad.

The New Sudan (al Sudan al Jadiid) of the late Dr John Garang was a vision of a Sudan of equality and non-discrimination in which the provinces—the margins of the South, west, east and north—all enjoyed a fair share of power and resources. Dr John’s vision was shaped by his prescient analysis of the fatal flaws of the 1972 peace agreement. And so his idea of the New Sudan was, in part, a vision of the ‘Addis Ababa Agreement plus’—the ‘plus’ meaning first that the South had a proper stake of central power, and second that all other regions of Sudan enjoyed those rights and wielded those powers. In practice, during the long years of war in the South, the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, ‘New Sudan’ meant those areas controlled by the SPLA. The dream of a ‘New Sudan’ in line with Garang’s manifesto of national transformation is powerfully attractive to many Sudanese, including many Darfurians. The advocates of Dr John’s vision argue, correctly, that the ‘New Sudan’ remains untested. But it is possible that the project was buried along with its visionary three years ago. And we can never turn back the clock to the Sudan of 35 years ago, which nurtured the hopes of a wonderful combination of national integration and local integrity.

The New Sudan (al Sudan al Hadith) of Dr Hassan al Turabi was a starkly different vision of a new Islamic personality, an ethical transformation of the country in line with the sheikh’s interpretation of Islam. Although Turabi is famous for being a political chameleon, his project also betrays its roots in the 1970s—the years of when Islamism appeared to offer a progressive alternative to Arab nationalism and socialism. His central vision was that in order to create his Islamic state, he needed an Islamic society, and that in turn needed new Muslims. Of course, the great majority of Sudanese Muslims didn’t see anything wrong with the way in which they had been practicing their faith for generations. In practice, Turabi’s ‘New Sudan’ was discredited by the violence, intolerance and corruption that accompanied the Islamist experiment of the early and mid-1990s. Though its mentor is alive and active, this political project was interred even before Turabi was removed from power in 1999.

Sudan’s national debate is conducted in the shadow of these two ‘New Sudans’ and the political giants who created them. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 allowed for a six-year interim period in which the people of the Sudan would develop a national democratic system and constitution, with the aim of ‘making unity attractive.’ This project—of elections, constitutional reform, and a peace dividend—should be about far more than building roads and schools, it would be an opportunity for all Sudanese to discuss the future of their country. During the long drawn out peace processes of that began in the mid-1990s and culminated in the CPA, the Southerners had the opportunity for a South-South peace process and dialogue. The Darfurians have demanded the right to something similar—and the Darfur Peace Agreement contains provisions for a Darfur-Darfur Dialogue and Consultation. But we are still awaiting the Sudan-Sudan dialogue. The hope for a free, inclusive and participatory national debate during the interim period remains unfulfilled.

Sudanese are not, of course, silent. Political debates are never silences. These debates are dominated by the generation that came of age in the 1960s and ‘70s—in fact several major political parties have not changed their leadership for twenty or thirty years. And many younger leaders often speak with echoes of their elders’ voices. Darfur’s young SLM leaders for example, have little to say that their elders did not say better two, three or even four decades ago. One consequence of this is that when NCP leaders imply that there is no alternative to Omar al Bashir’s presidency—if he were to go the result would be the collapse of the state itself with incalculable consequences for the Sudanese people and the entire region—they may not necessarily be wrong. Does the alternative leadership consist only of these recycled politicians from the last forty years of the country’s democratic and military twists and turns?

The reality of these debates is that the ‘new’ in the ‘New Sudans’ is rather stale. It is as much nostalgia as manifesto. It speaks to the dreams of a generation that has grown up with war, extremism and displacement. But if the visions of the New Sudan are to be relevant to the economic and social realities of today’s Sudanese, the leaders need to put in some hard intellectual labor to appreciate the irreversible changes that have overtaken the country.

A different New Sudan is unfolding before our eyes. It is one that none expected. It appears in no political manifesto. It is not debated by political leaders and rarely discussed by intellectuals.

One dominant feature of the real new Sudan is urbanization. According to UN population estimates, around 2015 half of all Sudanese will be urban residents—and if we include displaced persons it could happen some years earlier. The proportion of the national income that goes to urban dwellers has probably passed 75% already.

The actual new Sudan is not only urban, it is metropolitan. Politically, economically and socially, the new Sudan is greater Khartoum. The politics, economics and social life of the peripheries is already managed by leaders who live in Khartoum. The nation’s entire elite either lives in the city or maintains close links with family members who live there.

The actual new Sudan is global. Khartoum is not only an international city, it is a globalized one. Despite diplomatic isolation and sanctions, Khartoum is as international as it ever was. The professional diaspora to the Gulf states in the 1970s, when Sudanese professionals migrated en masse to provide the skills to manage the oil boom, was followed by the vast dispersal of refugees from all parts of the country in the 1990s—none of whom severed their links with the home country. Sudanese families from north, south, east and west are now international, with members scattered in foreign countries, in their historic home towns and villages, and in the hub of these networks—Khartoum. The influences on modern Sudan come from places such as Malaysia (where many go for higher education) and Spain (the home of Sudan’s most famous female singer, Rasha) as well as the more traditional locales of Cairo, Kampala and London.

Khartoum is a modern and metropolitan city in unexpected ways. One of the least-remarked facts of the last twenty years is the extent of women’s education—about half of all university graduates in the country are women. While both the SPLM and Islamist versions of the New Sudan paid lip service to a role for women, the actual New Sudan is being redesigned by educated women in quiet but radical ways.

The most important distinction in the country today is between those who own land in the capital, have access to hard currency, and who educate their children either abroad or to an international standard in Khartoum. Those who win on all three counts are shaping the future of Sudan. When the current generation of leaders passes on, it is surely the children of this globally-connected elite who will inherit the country. Those who don’t–the vast majority–are the losers in the actual New Sudan. How to manage the challenge of inclusion is one of the biggest tasks facing Sudan’s rulers. The habitual way of doing it is to allow wealth to trickle down, partly through a free market (that operates to the advantage of those close to power), and partly through a patronage system–and to suppress armed dissent with widespread violence. As Sudan becomes an urban society, the demands for more equality will grow, and violent repression becomes less feasible.

Today’s Khartoum is a far cry from the slow-paced town of the 1960s and ‘70s, with its egalitarianism, civility and civic pride. Today’s Khartoum has something in common with the multi-national entrepôt of the mid-19th century, the point at which international capital passed beyond the limits of any regulation, and adventurers could make instant fortunes with the right connections, ambition and luck. The ugly side to today’s New Sudan cannot be disputed—above all the extreme inequality among Sudanese citizens. But Sudan today has stronger continuities with the deep historical pattern of migration and cultural mixing at the point where the Nile crosses the savannas. Sudan has always been a hybrid country—an African and Arab country, a nation of Muslims, Christians and noble spiritual believers. For fifty years and more, Sudanese have struggled as to which element of the mixture should be the dominant one. As, year on year, more and more elements are added to this mix, should not the Sudanese celebrate the astonishing ability of their society to absorb these disparate influences from around the world? Is the adaptability of the Sudanese people not the country’s greatest asset in the era of globalization?

As news coverage of Darfur’s horrors again ebbs, as regional rains reach their heaviest in a deadly season known as the “hunger gap,” the regime in Khartoum appears to have outwaited the international community.

The men who have orchestrated ethnic destruction in Darfur now believe that by threatening the massive UN humanitarian and peacekeeping presence in the region, they can have their way with the fate of international justice and determine fully the fate of Darfur’s millions of conflict-affected civilians.

This threat emerges in response to a July announcement by International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo seeking an arrest warrant against President Omar al-Bashir, charging him with genocide and crimes against humanity. Khartoum has so far responded mainly with declarations defying and denouncing the ICC.

But recent language suggests an ominous shift. Increasingly confident that it will not be held accountable by its neighbors in the Arab and African worlds, Khartoum has now declared in effect, “don’t allow an ICC arrest warrant to be issued or we will undermine security for the UN in Darfur.”

At the same time, an extraordinary coalition of expediency and callousness has joined with Khartoum, coming primarily from African, Arab and Islamic countries expressing greater concern for a possible arrest warrant for Bashir than for the overwhelming evidence of crimes committed by him and his regime.

These crimes continue: This past week more than 100 civilians, the majority women and children, were killed or wounded by the regime’s security forces in an armed assault on the Kalma displaced persons camp.

The longer international silence continues in the face of such outrageous threats against the UN, the more dangerous the moment in which the ICC three-judge panel announces its decision in the coming weeks. For if Khartoum does move to create additional insecurity for humanitarians, who already face intolerable risks and harassment, entire organizations will withdraw, even in this season of fierce malnutrition.

Humanitarian reach is already severely attenuated, both by violence and the current rains. UN/African Union peacekeepers – who have been repeatedly attacked by Khartoum and its Arab militia allies – will become dramatically more defensive, and civilian populations commensurately more vulnerable. Human destruction will rapidly escalate to some of the worst in the conflict.

The clarity of the imminent crisis has been unfortunately obscured. Some criticize Moreno-Ocampo, suggesting that his language and charges of genocide are too inflammatory. The notion that more politic or carefully calibrated charges would be less threatening to Khartoum, given its crimes in Darfur, is unpersuasive.

What we really see here is an argument for accommodation or acquiescence in the name of a Darfur “peace process” that simply does not exist. Indeed, as Sudan’s history under the current regime reveals all too clearly, it is precisely the absence of accountability that has made these brutal men so destructive for so many years. It is the “climate of impunity” repeatedly declared by UN and human rights officials that has made of Darfur the longest ongoing episode of genocide in the past century, set to enter its seventh year in a matter of months.

Certainly Darfuris, with the most at stake, overwhelmingly support the ICC and its pursuit of justice, refusing to countenance a contrived choice between peace and justice. But without robust action soon to support the UN on the ground in Darfur, a grim choice between tenuous “security” and justice may become inevitable.

If the world backs down on the matter of justice and accountability, international efforts to end impunity in Darfur will have been crushed. It will be the final emboldening of this regime, which will know that there is no line that can’t be crossed, no threat that can’t be wielded to preserve its tyrannical hold on power.

Absent timely, concerted, forceful international action at the Security Council – with clearly articulated consequences for any move against UN efforts in Darfur – Khartoum may well dare to take the actions that will cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

An early test of the next president’s moral courage will come as he decides how to engage two Sudanese people named Bashir.

One is President Omar al-Bashir, who faces indictment for genocide by the International Criminal Court. The other is Dr. Halima Bashir, a young Darfuri woman whom the Sudanese authorities have tried to silence by beatings and gang-rape.

In 10 days, Halima’s extraordinary memoir will be published in the United States, at considerable risk to herself. She writes in “Tears of the Desert” of growing up in a placid village in rural Darfur, of her wonder at seeing white people for the first time, of her brilliant performance in school.

Eventually Halima became a doctor, just as the genocide against black African tribes like her own began in 2003. Halima soon found herself treating heartbreaking cases, like that of a 6-year-old boy who suffered horrendous burns when the state-sponsored janjaweed militia threw him into a burning hut.

One day she gave an interview in which she delicately hinted that the Darfur reality was more complicated than the Sudanese government version. The authorities detained her, threatened her, warned her to keep silent and transferred her to a remote clinic where there were no journalists around to interview her.

Then the janjaweed attacked a girls’ school near Halima’s new clinic and raped dozens of the girls, aged 7 to 13. The first patient Halima tended to was 8 years old. Her face was bashed in and her insides torn apart. The girl was emitting a haunting sound: “a keening, empty wail kept coming from somewhere deep within her throat — over and over again,” she recalls in the book.

Sudan’s government dispatches rapists the way other governments dispatch the police, the better to terrorize black African tribes and break their spirit. What sometimes isn’t noted is that many young Darfuri girls undergo an extreme form of genital cutting called infibulation, in which the vagina is stitched closed until marriage; that makes such rapes of schoolgirls particularly violent and bloody, increasing the risk of AIDS transmission.

Halima found herself treating the girls with tears streaming down her own face. All she had to offer the girls for their pain was half a pill each of acetaminophen: “At no stage in my years of study had I been taught how to deal with 8-year-old victims of gang rape in a rural clinic without enough sutures to go around.”

Soon afterward, two United Nations officials showed up at the clinic to gather information about the attack. Halima told them the truth.

A few days later, the secret police kidnapped her. “You speak to the foreigners!” one man screamed at her. They told her that she had talked of rape but knew nothing about it — yet. For days they beat her, gang-raped her, cut her with knives, burned her with cigarettes, mocked her with racial epithets. One told her, “Now you know what rape is, you black dog.”

Upon her release, a shattered Halima fled back to her native village, but it was soon attacked and burned — and her beloved father killed. Halima still doesn’t know what happened to her mother or brothers. Eventually she made her way to Britain, where she is seeking asylum, and even there Sudanese agents are trying to track her whereabouts.

It is difficult to verify some of Halima’s story, and she has modified her own name and some place names to protect family members from retribution. But what can be checked out does check out and suggests no exaggeration.

For example, Halima says in her book that she does not know how many girls were raped at the school but that 40 were brought to the clinic. I’ve found independent accounts of the same attack that describe as many as 110 girls and teachers raped and dozens more kidnapped; the United Nations also has photos of the school after the attack.

I asked Halima if she regrets telling the U.N. officials about the rape of the schoolgirls, considering what it cost her. She sighed and said no.

“What happened to me happened to so many other Darfur women,” she said. “If I didn’t tell, all the other people don’t get the chance — and I have the chance. I am a well-educated woman, so I can speak up and send a message to the world.”

Halima’s bravery contrasts with the world’s fecklessness and failures on Darfur. She is applying for a travel document and a visa to come to the United States to talk about her book, but it seems unlikely that they will arrive in time for its release. I hope President Bush accelerates the process and invites her to the White House, to show the world which of the two Bashirs America stands behind.

JUBA – Sudan’s central Nuba Mountains region risks erupting into open conflict again because of a build-up of troops and weapons, analysts said on Tuesday.

The Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey research group said northern and southern forces were breaking the terms of a 2005 peace deal by taking on recruits in the politically tense but overlooked region.

The area, covered in large rocky hills, was a key battleground in Sudan’s two-decade, north-south civil war, which ended with the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

But northern and southern leaders have accused each other of obstructing critical parts of the deal and major fighting has broken out twice between the two armies in other flashpoints.

“Tensions are mounting in the (Nuba Mountains) region … development plans are overshadowed by the danger of a return to open conflict,” the report stated.

“The area is highly militarized with both parties to the conflict actively violating the CPA … by recruiting members of armed groups,” it added.

The study said the Nuba Mountains had been largely ignored while international attention focused on Darfur and other north-south clashes, like the fighting that broke out over the central oil-rich region of Abyei earlier this year.

Under the CPA, the southern army was supposed to redeploy out of the Nuba Mountains area and northern forces were supposed to reduce their numbers to pre-war levels.

But the Small Arms Survey reported the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army had grown with 1,500 new recruits over the last six months.

The northern army has refused to let U.N. peacekeepers monitor their troop numbers in the area, said the report, adding that the Khartoum-supported Popular Defence Forces militia could now have as many as 20,000 men in the region.

The 2005 peace deal gave southerners a share in the country’s oil revenues and their own semi-autonomous government. But many in Nuba have seen little change, said one international analyst, speaking on conditions of anonymity.

“Definitely there’s trouble ahead. You just have to look at the frustration,” the analyst added.

The Nuba Mountains lie in one of Sudan’s special “transitional” areas, identified under the 2005 deal. Although currently administratively part of northern Sudan the region was promised greater autonomy under the peace deal.

Members of the many Nuba tribes, citing marginalisation by Khartoum, had joined the south during the civil war.

Southerners will have an independence referendum in 2011 but residents in the Nuba Mountains area have only been promised a vaguer “popular parliamentary consultation” on their status.

EL GENEINA — When Sudan’s president landed in this remote western Darfur town, he was warmly greeted by a man who by all logic should be his mortal enemy — a tribal chief the Sudanese leader is charged with trying to exterminate.

The sultan of the Masalit tribe, Saad Abdel-Rahman Bahr-Eddin, wearing an elaborate golden robe and large white head wrap, approached President Omar al-Bashir and raised his hands in the air in a common Sudanese gesture of welcome.

Al-Bashir was met with similar warmth by the sultans of the Fur and Zaghawa tribes on subsequent stops last month on his tour of Darfur, which came days after he was indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide against their peoples.

The closeness of the traditional tribal leaders to al-Bashir illustrates the complexity of the Darfur conflict, often seen as simply a violent clash between the Arab-led Khartoum government and ethnic African Darfur tribes like Bahr-Eddin’s. Now, Al-Bashir is eager for support from the tribal leaders, hoping that by showing a willingness for peace in Darfur, he can stall ICC prosecution.

African tribal leaders walk a fine line in the conflict, courted by the government and branded by armed rebels from their own tribes who are fighting Khartoum as sellouts seeking only to keep their titles. But analysts say their status means they could play a key role in any future peace negotiations as representatives of the Darfur people.

Bahr-Eddin insists he’s acting in his people’s interests. “It is better to deal with the government than make it your enemy,” he told The Associated Press after the ceremonies last month. “You protect people’s rights and can realize some benefits.”

“Sometimes the government calls me a rebel and sometimes the rebels say I am with the government,” he said.

But keeping close to the president has cost Bahr-Eddin much support among his Masalit people, hundreds of thousands of whom have fled into neighboring Chad to escape the violence, said Fouad Hikmat, a Sudan expert with the International Crisis Group, speaking Monday.

Many lower-level chiefs in the tribal hierarchy have backed the rebels, and Bahr-Eddin’s own brother has stood up to challenge his authority.

But at the same time, Darfur rebels are chronically divided, splintering into as many as 30 factions and unable to come together on peace talks that European and U.N. mediators have been trying for months to organize. With no unified rebel leadership for Darfurians, the traditional authority of tribal sultans like Bahr-Eddin is increasingly becoming more attractive.

“The more the rebels failed their people, the more the tribal leaders will assert their authority,” said Julie Flint, co-author of a book on the Darfur conflict.

Darfur rebels rose up against Khartoum in 2003, complaining of central government discrimination against them in favor of Darfur’s Arab tribes. The rebels were led by younger tribesmen, angry at their traditional leaders’ closeness to the central government.

Khartoum replied with a military crackdown, while the pro-government Arab janjaweed militiamen waged a campaign of atrocities against ethnic African civilians, killing and raping them and driving them from their villages. Up to 300,000 people have been killed and more than 2.5 million have lost their homes.

Bahr-Eddin, 46, and the other paramount tribal chiefs have a mix of interests in supporting al-Bashir, not just in protecting whatever Darfurians they can, experts say. They also want to preserve their own hereditary titles and authority.

In recent years, Khartoum has sought to co-opt tribal leaders, appointing them to local councils and paying their salaries. The government appointed Bahr-Eddin three years ago to Darfur’s local parliament, which he now heads.

During his Darfur tour, al-Bashir promised to listen to tribal leaders’ demands and give more local authority, development projects, and a prominent seat for them at future peace talks. Bahr-Eddin and other top tribal leaders, in turn, denounced the ICC indictment.

But in a sign of the divisions, many prominent lower-level tribal chiefs and rebel supporters refused to attend the government-orchestrated rallies for al-Bashir. Some issued a statement denouncing the events and calling those who attended as “traders in our blood.”

Khartoum’s moves against the Masalit began even earlier than the current conflict. In the late 1990s, the government divided up the traditional lands of the Masalit Sultanate, located in the western part of Darfur near the Chadian border, giving parts of it to Darfur Arabs. It then took similar steps against the Fur and Zaghawa, Darfur’s other two main tribes.

Still, Hikmat said, Sultan Bahr-Eddin’s embrace of Khartoum — he’s even a member of al-Bashir’s ruling party — prevented the blow from being even worse and ensuring that the traditional rule of the Masalit remained intact.

“He managed to protect his people to an extent, not 100 percent,” Hikmat said. “Instead of totally dismantling (his sultanate), he put his head with the (ruling) National Congress Party.”

KHARTOUM — The head of the UN mission in Sudan on Thursday urged rival troops from north and south to withdraw fully from a flashpoint oil region where fighting recently threatened to reignite civil war.

Clashes in Abyei last May between ex-foes, the armed forces of northern and southern Sudan, was seen as the biggest threat to the 2005 peace deal that ended 21 years of civil war after more than 1.5 million people were killed.

Under a roadmap for Abyei signed on June 8, north and south were to withdraw all their previous forces, deploy joint military units (JIUs) and appoint an administration to govern the area until a referendum on its fate in 2011.

“We are urging both sides to fully complete their withdrawal so that the JIUs can deploy, patrol throughout the Abyei area,” Ashraf Qazi told a news conference more than two months after the roadmap was signed.

Qazi, the special representative in Sudan for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, said pockets of forces, who were “not large” and “not significant”, remained in the Abyei area but that all forces had left town.

Observers say that up to 300 soldiers remain in the area, where estimates of the number of government troops from the northern-controlled army range from 14 to 200; on top of around 100 southern Sudanese forces.

“The requirement of the roadmap for both forces to withdraw… has by and large been met but we want a complete withdrawal,” said Qazi.

“We do not see this as a major problem. It’s just a question of delays and we are engaged with both sides and I’m confident that soon these forces will have completely withdrawn from the area,” said Qazi.

The Abyei region’s estimated half-billion-dollar oil wealth is bitterly contested by Sudan’s Arab north and Christian and animist south.

Recent fighting flattened its town, displaced up to 50,000 people, killed at least 89 others and forced a temporary UN evacuation of civilian staff.

Ethnic rivalry in Abyei pits the Ngok Dinka, who dominate Abyei town and villages to the south, and are generally sympathetic to the south, against nomadic Arab tribesmen who migrate seasonally to graze their livestock.

On August 8, President Omar al-Beshir appointed a southerner as chief administrator in Abyei with a nothern deputy following an agreement between the National Congress Party and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement.

Three years earlier, the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended two decades of civil war called for a joint administration in Abyei.

At the end of the CPA in 2011, Abyei is to hold a referendum on whether to retain its special administrative status in the north, or join the semi-autonomous south, which could decide in a separate referendum to secede.

Colonel Valentino Tokmac, the commander of the 640 joint forces in Abyei, told AFP by telephone on Thursday that his battalion had taken over security in the area and were beginning the clean up operation in the town.

He said pockets of government forces in the north and Sudan People’s Liberation Army in Agok, to the south, were in the process of withdrawing.

North and south are waiting for international arbitration in The Hague to settle their dispute over the border demarcation of the Abyei area.

Jeffrey Gettleman’s article in today’s New York Times, “Darfur Withers as Sudan Sells a Food Bonanza,” is an excellent overview of the issues surrounding food production and food relief. Excepting solely the current context of high international food prices, it could have been written at any time in the last thirty years.

In the 1970s, Sudan sought to become the “breadbasket of the Middle East” even while it failed to tackle undernutrition in the provinces. The 1984 famine in western Sudan and the Red Sea Hills occurred while the Gedaref grain merchants exported food to the Middle East. Trains taking sorghum to Port Sudan to be shipped abroad passed relief convoys moving in the opposite direction, while the starving Beja—neglected in the early days of the relief effort—lined the roadside. Sudan recorded a record harvest in 1988, just as the Southern famine hit its nadir. And in 1990 there was a reprise of nationwide famine alongside food exports. Especially ironic, given the Islamist colour of the government, was the destination of some of the food exports—pig feed in Spain, Heineken production in Holland. And so it went on during the 1990s, albeit on a less egregious scale.

Of course there is nothing exceptional about countries or provinces exporting food during famines. It happened in Bengal in 1943, in Ethiopia’s Wollo in 1973, and on many other occasions. Hunger amid plenty is frequent and the result of how markets work. Amartya Sen’s Poverty and Famines (1981) begins with the commonplace but nonetheless repeatable observation that “Famine is the phenomenon of some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the phenomenon of there being not enough food to eat.” People starve if they don’t have sufficient resources to buy food or haven’t grown enough themselves. Merchants sell to those with money to buy, they don’t give away food to the hungry. If there isn’t enough food in the country, but there is enough purchasing power, traders import food.

Some relief agencies have tried to tackle this issue with cash grants to the poor and purchase of local surpluses. This is also an attempt to remedy the absurdity whereby food aid, tied to agricultural subsidies in wealthy countries, has to travel half way around the world when there are local surpluses available. The European Union moved its food aid programme to market-based purchase a decade ago, allowing it to buy locally. It has regularly bought food in Sudan. Four years ago, USAID tried to do the same for a proportion of its food aid, but was blocked by a combination of vested agricultural and shipping interests and the lobbying of NGOs which have guaranteed incomes from food aid disbursement (CARE was an honorable exception). (It’s an interesting question if the current U.S. embargo on trade relations with Sudan would allow USAID to buy food there if it wanted to.)

There are some good arguments in favour of not using exclusively market-based procurement for food relief. For example, market purchase may be slow in getting moving in response to a rapid-onset emergency, whereas the existing system means that there is usually enough food aid on the high seas for a ship to be in the vicinity of the disaster, ready to be diverted. But more common is the phenomenon of local surpluses remaining unsold, or being exported, while food aid is shipped from the mid-west.

Another set of issues is Sudan’s agricultural strategy and its relationship to land tenure laws, labour market regulation, commercial interests, counterinsurgency strategies, and international food aid. These were explored a decade ago in African Rights’ report, Food and Power in Sudan. Analysis of each of these five elements shows that Sudanese agriculture is subject to systematic distortion, through policy. Day-to-day commercial decisions—such as whether a supplier sells to the EU for local distribution or exports to Saudi Arabia—are based on market criteria. But long-established policy biases provide a huge subsidy to commercial agriculture, at the expense of smallholder farmers and their communities.

Since colonial days, Sudanese land tenure has failed to recognize customary land tenure. The resulting inequities were the focus of a debate on this blog earlier this year. Whatever are the merits and disadvantages of different approaches to addressing the problem of tenure security for smallholder farmers, there is no doubt that land dispossession is both a major reason for famine and an important motive for insurrection. Current land law facilitates expropriation by well-connected elites at the expense of rural people. It is particularly pronounced in Eastern Sudan, Blue Nile, Upper Nile and South Kordofan.

Sudanese commercial agriculture is labour intensive and suffers chronic labour shortages at peak times. Commercial farmers have always relied on a labour force which lacks full citizenship rights and is therefore cheaper to employ. In the colonial era the labourers on the Gezira Scheme were chiefly migrants from West Africa, notably the Nigerian-origin Fellata. In the late colonial period, large numbers of Masalit and Fur also migrated to central and eastern Sudan as agricultural labourers. Under the strict tenancy requirements of the Gezira, few could obtain land rights. It was easier to do so in eastern Sudan, as a result of which some Masalit migrants from Darfur’s far west cleared farmland on Sudan’s furthest eastern border with Ethiopia and Eritrea—and tried to escape the insecure livelihood of a casual farm labourer. In the late-1960s, Eritrean refugees swelled the ranks of farmworkers. And when the civil war resumed in 1983, Southern Sudanese and Nuba migrants replenished the labour force.

Today’s enthusiasm for agricultural investment by Middle Eastern companies is a reprise of the 1970s. Then it generated quick profits for commercial investors but was a social and environmental disaster. In 1986, the World Bank reversed its earlier support for expanding mechanized agriculture. This didn’t stop a continuing expansion of commercial schemes, many of them without formal registration. When backed by money and local policemen, the absence of proper documentation in Khartoum doesn’t matter too much. The CPA envisaged land commissions to examine this and other issues. They are not doing their job.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, counterinsurgency strategies in agriculturally-productive areas, such as the Nuba Mountains and southern Blue Nile, involved forcibly congregating villagers in “peace villages” where they provided a cheap labour force for work on agricultural schemes. Military control converged with land expropriation and the commercial farmers’ interest. This hasn’t happened in Darfur because there are no commercial farms of significance. Although the soils in South Darfur are good enough, the area is simply too remote for commercial farming to be a viable option, at least for the time being. If Nyala city continues to grow and prosper, and the food aid subsidy to its grain market declines, then the incentives for commercial agriculture in South Darfur will certainly change.

Food relief plays an interesting role in this process of political-economic change. This was first analyzed by Mark Duffield (in several reports and two chapters of Global Governance and the New Wars). When large number of war migrants first began to arrive in South Kordofan in 1987 and 1988, the authorities were at first resolutely opposed to giving them any food aid. They saw the displaced as a burden and a threat and would rather that they disappeared. But the alternative of them finding their way to Khartoum was less attractive, so schemes to keep them in South Kordofan in aid-supported peace villages were put forward. For the government and commercial farmers, these served the purposes of maintaining a cheap labour force. For the aid agencies, they were presented as the beginnings of new settlements that would ultimately become self-sufficient. In pursuit of this, people were only given part rations, on the grounds that this would create incentives for self-reliance. Given that the displaced were denied land rights, what it did of course was simply to subsidize their employment as labourers. This arrangement persisted for many years—it still exists—creating what Duffield calls the “permanent emergency” on the frontiers of the areas of consolidated government control.

Thirty years of studies of Sudan’s agricultural sector have consistently recommended major reform in favour of customary tenure and smallholder production. In the commercial farming regions, very little has ever been implemented. (Ironically, Darfur did much better with the Western Savanna and Jebel Marra projects, which were supportive of smallholder agriculture.) If world food prices remain high, we can expect that commercial farmers will be the main beneficiaries of the bonanza, and in turn this will encourage more land allocations for mechanized food production, more expropriation of smallholders, and more rural distress and grievance. It’s time for these studies of Sudanese agriculture to be dusted off and their recommendations examined again.

ED DAMER, Sudan — Even as it receives a billion pounds of free food from international donors, Sudan is growing and selling vast quantities of its own crops to other countries, capitalizing on high global food prices at a time when millions of people in its war-riddled region of Darfur barely have enough to eat.

Here in the bone-dry desert, where desiccated donkey carcasses line the road, huge green fields suddenly materialize. Beans. Wheat. Sorghum. Melons. Peanuts. Pumpkins. Eggplant. It is all grown here, part of an ambitious government plan for Sudanese self-sufficiency, creating giant mechanized farms that rise out of the sand like mirages.

But how much of this bonanza is getting back to the hungry Sudanese, like the 2.5 million driven into camps in Darfur? And why is a country that exports so many of its own crops receiving more free food than anywhere else in the world, especially when the Sudanese government is blamed for creating the crisis in the first place?

African countries that rely on donated food usually cannot produce enough on their own. Somalia, Ethiopia, Niger and Zimbabwe are all recent examples of how war, natural disasters or gross mismanagement can cut deep into food production, pushing millions of people to the brink of starvation.

But here in Sudan, there seem to be plenty of calories to go around. The country is already growing wheat for Saudi Arabia, sorghum for camels in the United Arab Emirates and vine-ripened tomatoes for the Jordanian Army. Now the government is plowing $5 billion into new agribusiness projects, many of them to produce food for export.

Take sorghum, a staple of the Sudanese diet, typically eaten in flat, spongy bread. Last year, the United States government, as part of its response to the emergency in Darfur, shipped in 283,000 tons of sorghum, at high cost, from as far away as Houston. Oddly enough, that is about the same amount that Sudan exported, according to United Nations officials. This year, Sudanese companies, including many that are linked to the government in Khartoum, are on track to ship out twice that amount, even as the United Nations is being forced to cut rations to Darfur.

Eric Reeves, a professor at Smith College and an outspoken activist who has written frequently on the Darfur crisis, called this anomaly “one of the least reported and most scandalous features of the Khartoum regime’s domestic policies.” It was emblematic, he said, of the Sudanese government’s strategy to manipulate “national wealth and power to further enrich itself and its cronies, while the marginalized regions of the country suffer from terrible poverty.”

Aid groups gave up long ago on the Sudanese government helping the people of Darfur. After all, the nation’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has been accused of masterminding genocide in Darfur. United Nations officials have said that if they do not bring food into the region, the government surely will not.

That leaves the United Nations and Western aid groups feeding more than three million Darfurians. But the lifeline is fraying. Security is deteriorating. Aid trucks are getting hijacked nearly every day and deliveries are being made less and less frequently. The result: less food and soaring malnutrition rates, particularly among children.

On top of this is the broader problem of trying to find affordable grains on the world market when prices are higher than they have been in decades. United Nations officials in Sudan say that the fact that they have to import some of the same commodities that Sudan not only produces but exports is a source of constant frustration.

“Sudan could be self-sufficient,” said Kenro Oshidari, the director of the United Nations World Food Program in Sudan. “It does have the potential to be the breadbasket of Africa.”

Sudanese officials say that is precisely their goal, and they deny that Sudanese agribusiness is being built at the expense of their own people. They reject accusations that they are neglecting far-flung areas like Darfur, much less waging a war of hunger and deprivation against them.

Instead, Sudanese officials say they are simply trying to build up their economy. They say they know what it is like to be vilified, having been squeezed by American sanctions for more than a decade. And it could get worse, with Mr. Bashir facing genocide charges at the International Criminal Court in connection with the massacres in Darfur.

“Sanctions are never far from our mind,” said Al-Amin Dafa Allah, chairman of the National Assembly’s agricultural committee. “We’re trying to minimize our reliance on the outside.”

In fact, part of the reason relief agencies bring their own food into Sudan stems from the American policy of giving crops, not money, as foreign aid.

Many European countries, by contrast, just give the World Food Program cash, which can be used to buy food locally. Last year, the program bought 117,000 tons of Sudanese sorghum. United Nations officials said they would like to buy more, but they had had run-ins with Sudanese suppliers who could make more money with exports.

“We don’t get discounts,” said Emilia Casella, a spokeswoman for the World Food Program.

Sudanese officials say they want to sell more crops to the United Nations, but lost in this discussion about buying and selling food is whether the Sudanese government should be donating food to its own needy people.

For now, Sudanese officials seem more interested in doing business with their new partners in the Middle East. Sudan is the largest country in Africa, nearly one million square miles. It has 208 million acres of arable land, with less than a quarter being cultivated. The Sudanese government is striking deals left and right with Arab countries just across the Red Sea: the Arab countries bring the money, the soil scientists and the $200,000 tractors. Sudan supplies the land.

“Our country is small and dry and mountainous,” said Man Shuqwara, the Jordanian director of a Jordanian-run farm in northern Sudan that grows wheat, beans, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, oranges and bananas. “By logic we would come to Sudan.”

The same logic is attracting big money from Saudi Arabia. About an hour’s drive north of the Jordanian farm, near the town of Ed Damer, is a huge new $200 million project to grow wheat in what now looks like a 10-mile-wide sandbox. Some of the wheat will stay in Sudan; some will be shipped to Saudi Arabia. A fleet of new John Deere tractors is already lined up for harvest time. A worker on the farm whispered that the tractors had been sneaked into Sudan through Saudi Arabia because of the American trade sanctions.

Sudan’s overall economic strategy is to diversify from oil, which it began exporting in 1999, and to focus more closely on the traditional engine of the country’s economy — agriculture. More than 80 percent of the work force is engaged in raising animals or farming of one sort or another.

“Our sesame oil is the best in the world,” said Mr. Al-Amin, the agriculture committee chairman. “And it’s organic!”

But make no mistake about it: much of Sudan is still a blazing hot, cruelly barren landscape, with specterlike figures in impossibly white gowns tramping through the dust.

But at certain nodes, especially along the Nile River, this country is as green and lush as Florida. It boasts three crucial ingredients for growing things: land, labor and, most important, water.

The Nile and its tributaries flow more than 2,000 miles across Sudan, bringing the silt-rich water right to the fields. The British colonial government was the first to capitalize on this in a big way, building a dam in 1925 on the Blue Nile, one of the two main sources of the Nile River, and a network of canals. Today, that project, called the Gezira Scheme, has thousands of miles of canals irrigating nearly 2.5 million acres of farms. The genius is that it is all done by gravity, which means water flows from the dam through capillaries of canals to seedlings in the field, all without using a watt of electricity.

“We have water 24-7,” said Siddig Eissa Ahmed, the director of the Gezira Scheme, which is government-run, like much of Sudanese agribusiness.

The dark side of all this development is displacement. The conflict in Darfur, in western Sudan, is largely about grazing rights and watering holes — and the government’s brutal counterinsurgency policies in response to an armed rebellion. So far, the most ambitious agricultural projects have avoided the area altogether, and instead are concentrated in the central and northern parts of the country.

Even so, development in Sudan often means uprooting other rural subsistence farmers for large-scale commercial projects, said Alex de Waal, a Sudan scholar at the Social Science Research Council in New York.

“Smallholder food production goes down, commercial food production goes up, and food relief serves as a subsidy to this transformation, keeping the displaced alive,” he said.

The Sudanese government is widely blamed for running many of the displaced people in Darfur off their farms, making them reliant on handouts. Still, the government has been slow to feed them.

The last time the government gave the World Food Program any food for Darfur was in 2006. It was 22,000 tons of Sudanese-grown sorghum. It was a fraction of what the people needed, United Nations officials said, and some of the grain was rancid and infested with weevils.

KHARTOUM — Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir on Friday appointed a chief administrator for the contested oil region of Abyei where fighting three months ago threatened to reignite a north-south civil war.

His political partners and former foes in the south immediately welcomed the move, which follows cross-party talks and comes more than three years after a 2005 peace deal called for a joint administration in the volatile area.

Beshir issued a presidential decree naming Arop Moyak, a senior southern military officer, as chief administrator and Rahama Abdel Rahman al-Nour, the local chairman of Beshir’s main ruling National Congress Party, as deputy.

He gave them two weeks to name a seven-member administrative council and an additional area council of 20, officials said.

Fighting in Abyei last May between ex-foes, the armed forces of northern and southern Sudan, was seen as the biggest threat to the 2005 peace deal that ended 21 years of civil war after more than 1.5 million people were killed.

Under a roadmap for Abyei signed on June 8, north and south were to deploy joint military units and appoint an administration to govern the area after that fighting displaced more than 30,000 people and killed at least 89 others.

“I think this is the last hurdle that we had and it’s now cleared,” Dirdiri Mohamed Ahmed, the NCP official responsible for Abyei, told AFP.

“They will begin work immediately… They should first come from Abyei to the presidency to be sworn in. I hope this could take place early next week.”

Once the entire administration is in place, it should oversee the return of displaced people and the dispensing of resources pledged by the national unity government and the Sudanese presidency from oil revenue, said Ahmed.

“Of course it means a real opportunity for the people of the area to have access to the peace dividend,” he added.

Friday’s decree comes with Sudan just over half way through implementing the six-year 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, beset by a catalogue of delays, that enshrined the principle of a joint administration in Abyei.

At the end of the CPA in 2011, Abyei is to hold a referendum on whether to retain its special administrative status in the north, or join the semi-autonomous south, which could decide in a separate referendum to secede.

The region’s estimated half-billion-dollar oil wealth is bitterly contested by Sudan’s Arab north and Christian and animist south.

The ethnic rivalry in Abyei pits the Ngok Dinka, who dominate the town and villages to the south, and are generally sympathetic to the south, against nomadic Arab tribesmen who migrate seasonally to graze their livestock.

The information minister in semi-autonomous southern Sudan, Gabriel Changson Chang, told AFP that the 20-member area council would include 12 members from the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and eight from the NCP.

The extra five administrators, who would make up the administrative council with Moyak and Nour would include three from the SPLM and two from the NCP.

“Thank God they have agreed at last to have an administration for the Abyei area, so we welcome it. Better late than never,” Chang told AFP.

“With this agreement and the appointments we hope things will move forward for Abyei and that life will return to normal, the displaced will go back to their homes and start a new life,” Chang said.

North and south are waiting for international arbitration in The Hague to settle their dispute over the border demarcation of the Abyei area.

Chang said Mayok, a Ngok Dinka, is chairman in the south for the commission set up to oversee disarmament and demobilisation after the 2005 peace deal.

In the weeks building up to the Abyei clashes, north and south were at loggerheads over what the north interpreted as the south’s dispatch of one of its own politicians — Edward Lino — to administer the area.

BEIJING — For seven years, China has dreamed of orchestrating every detail, athletic and political, of its glorious Opening Ceremonies to the Olympics. Now, one lean 1,500-meter runner from the United States, chosen by his teammates in an act of open defiance, may steal the show. Lopez Lomong, one of the Sudanese “Lost Boys” and a member of the anti-genocide group Team Darfur, has been chosen by his 595 U.S. Olympic teammates to carry our flag on Friday. What, we couldn’t find a Tibetan monk on the team?

What a coincidence. Just hours before U.S. team captains met to decide on the flag carrier, Chinese officials rescinded the visa of Joey Cheek, a speedskating gold medalist who carried the U.S. flag at the Closing Ceremonies at the 2006 Winter Games and later co-founded Team Darfur. After that slap at Cheek, U.S. athletes here had almost nothing to say on the topic. One even referred to the subject as “the question they warned us about.”

Perhaps they didn’t answer individually. But the entire U.S. team gave its answer — as a group and in capital letters — with Lomong’s selection. You jerk Cheek’s visa. We put Lomong in your face. And do it proudly.

You have to hand it to the Chinese Communist Party: They certainly know how to muzzle Americans. Cheek, a Princeton grad, might have held a seminar. Four billion people around the world will see Lomong carrying our flag.

Far more than that, untold millions of people, in the next few days, will hear Lomong’s life story, in his own words. In a half-hour monologue here on Friday, just 10 hours before he was to carry the flag, Lomong told a tale of grief, endurance, redemption and almost unimaginable hardship that captures in human terms every aspect of the Darfur tragedy. And without Lomong saying a single “controversial” political word, he highlighted China’s culpability by cynically supporting the Sudanese regime as partner in the vast oil company PetroChina.

When U.S. Olympic Committee Chairman Peter Ueberroth was asked if the selection of Lomong was an expression by U.S. athletes about their views on China’s human rights abuses, Ueberroth said: “The athletes can answer that better themselves. But either way, it’s fine. Either way it’s good. Lopez earned the right to carry the flag. You [media] folks can go with it. We’ll get out of your way.”

Let’s get going. During a Sunday morning Mass 17 years ago, the 6-year-old Lomong, along with about 100 other children, was taken at gunpoint from his parents, driven away blindfolded in a truck and dumped in a cramped, windowless, one-room prison full of boys. There, they were fed millet full of barely visible sand, which prevented proper digestion, and, within days, gradually led to the death of boy after boy.

“They would go to sleep and never stand up again. ‘Tomorrow will be my day,’ ” Lomong said. “But I had three angels.” They were slightly older boys who told him to eat just enough of the death gruel to stay alive, but not enough to kill himself. After three weeks, the older trio discovered a hole in a fence. At midnight, crawling while guards talked, stopping when they fell silent, then crawling until they were outside the compound, the four boys began to run. “That is where my race started,” Lomong said.

Despite one boy holding each of his hands as they fled, Lomong nonetheless battered his legs on so many trees and thorns “that’s why they still look like such a mess . . . We ran for three days and nights. They would hide me in a cave while two of them went to get water. They would fetch some back for me in a big leaf.”

When the four boys fell asleep at night, they made sure to keep their bodies pointed in the same direction that they had been running “so that we did not run back in the wrong direction toward the guards or run in circles,” Lomong said. Finally, they were arrested at the Kenyan border — penniless, unable to speak the local Swahili — and taken to a refugee camp.

For the next 10 years.

There, thanks to the United Nations, a group of 10 boys were able to eat one meal a day. “You eat late at night so it will carry you until the next night,” Lomong said. “In the day, you play soccer or run to keep your mind off the hunger. . . . Still, some Kenyans were not happy with us because we had more food than they did.

“I thought my family was dead, but in the camp I became happy again.”

Twice a year, at Christmas and Easter, the 10 boys got one chicken. They mixed it with salt and water to make weak chicken soup and treasured every tiny morsel of actual chicken, their only meat of the year.

In 2001, word arrived that the United States wanted to take 3,500 of these refugee “Lost Boys” to the United States to place with foster families. “But you had to write your life story to see who would go,” Lomong said. “I just decided to say, ‘This is me.’ I put everything on a piece of paper.”

After three weeks, “They said, ‘Congratulations.’ “

The rest was an incomprehensible swirl. An airplane, a family (Robert and Barbara Rogers) in Upstate New York and the sight of unfathomable cars, roads and cities. “I had to learn everything, like how to shower. [Is it] hot or cold? No, put it in the middle.”

Straight from the airport, the Rogers took Lomong to McDonald’s. Yeah, yeah, the Olympic sponsor. And what did he order? Chicken.

When he had eaten all he could, there was chicken left. “Throw it away,” his new parents told him. “There’s more at home.” But he couldn’t. “I remembered when a little piece of chicken was ‘Merry Christmas to you.’ So I took it home.”

Given opportunities that American teenagers take for granted, he embraced his chance with his whole soul. School was a blessing but also breathtaking to a 16-year-old who had always learned his letters by writing in the dirt.

So, you ask, how on earth did Lomong get the idea of being an Olympian? Once in Kenya, he was given five shillings for watering cows. It was his only money but he never spent it, keeping it for the right moment. He heard others talking about the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and how, on the only TV set in the area, five miles away, they might watch it. So, Lomong and friends walked five miles to the black-and-white TV only to find out that, for each event you watched, you had to pay — five shillings.

That day, Lopez Lomong saw sprinter Michael Johnson run and win, stand on the podium in a U.S. uniform and cry as his anthem was played. “I want to run as fast as that guy,” Lomong says he thought. “And I want to wear that same uniform. I was so determined. I knew I could run. Running is what we do all our lives. It is part of our transportation.”

On July 6, 2007, Lomong became an U.S. citizen. On July 6, 2008, he made the U.S. Olympic team. “It is what we call, ‘Dream makes history,’ ” Lomong said.

Once he gained citizenship, Lomong returned to his native land and was reunited with his parents who had, long ago, assumed he was dead, held a funeral and buried what remnants, like a child’s beads, that he had left behind. Last December, Lomong participated in a burial in reverse as his plot was unearthed and blessed. “They revive me back,” he said with a grin. “I am alive again.”

In his Sudanese village where war and genocide, disappearing families and starvation have seemed an unending fate, Lomong told everyone never to give up, that someone they believed dead “may be out there somewhere.” For his parents, he bought a TV and told them: “You can watch me in the ‘08 Olympics. I didn’t know I would make the team.”

Then his sheepish, gap-toothed expressing broke into a wide-eyed smile: “But I did.”

Not long ago, Lomong told a half-dozen track teammates, “I would like to be the one carrying the flag.” As a member of Team Darfur, he knew it would spread information about the misery in Sudan and China’s role as economic facilitator of the ruling regime.

“My [track] teammates spread the word.”

When Cheek was denied his visa, the idea of Lomong carrying the flag had already been making the rounds among U.S. athletes. We’ll no doubt learn the details of his election eventually. For now, nobody is giving details for fear of politicizing the Olympics even more. And Lomong, wisely, only says he wants to inspire other children, including those with challenges to overcome in China, while being a “good ambassador” for the United States.

“It will be great tonight,” Lomong said. “I can’t wait.”

All across Beijing, pollution hung so low that you could hardly see from one venue to another across the street. Yet there will be a bright light in the Bird’s Nest soon.
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The Chinese may light their Olympic flame wherever they like. Lopez Lomong will be the night’s truest beacon.

“I can’t wait,” he said, “to be the first one out.”

NYALA — Sudan’s president made a defiant visit to Darfur just a week after being charged with genocide in the war-ravaged region, vowing not to be intimidated by the indictment and then breaking into a tribal dance on a parched field to the delight of cheering supporters.

Wearing a beige suit and sunglasses and carrying a silver-tipped cane, President Omar al-Bashir exuded confidence during his stops Wednesday. He sought to cast himself as a peacemaker during speeches across the troubled land where an international prosecutor accuses him of committing crimes against humanity.

The carefully orchestrated trip seemed designed to portray the president as being deeply concerned about the region’s people as his government tries to persuade the U.N. Security Council to block the case against him. It was al-Bashir’s first known visit to Darfur in more than three years, and he rarely allows Western journalists to accompany him anywhere.

For hours, state television broadcast pictures of thousands of people in brightly colored tunics screaming “God is great!” and waving banners reading “No! No! to the prosecutor!” and “We are with you, al-Bashir!” Some signs were in English.

Last week, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor filed 10 charges against al-Bashir for allegedly masterminding a campaign of extermination and rape targeting three Darfur tribes as part of the government’s campaign to quell a rebellion. The United Nations says about 300,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been uprooted over the past five years.

“The president came to Darfur to send a message that (the ICC prosecutor) has no case,” said Abdel Mahmoud al-Koronky, a member of al-Bashir’s National Congress Party traveling with him.

During one stop in northern Darfur, al-Bashir met with 600 refugees from various tribes, including those he is accused of targeting with atrocities, but the crowd in El Fasher appeared to be carefully hand-picked by his advisers.

The president had no plans to visit any of the region’s sprawling refugee camps where people have moved to escape violence. He promised to send them farm tractors and improve safety in the camps by giving security jobs to former rebels, but gave no details.

“The real sickness here is the suffering of the displaced, because they are the ones who lost their sense of security and safety in their hometowns,” al-Bashir told the group in El Fasher.

In another apparent gesture toward his opponents in Darfur, al-Bashir said he would free more than 80 young rebels imprisoned after taking part in a brazen May attack near the capital, Khartoum, which is hundreds of miles from their desert bases in the country’s west. He called them “boys” and said they would be freed and pardoned, but did not say when.

On touching down in the torrid region, al-Bashir jumped out of his plane and walked briskly into a boisterous crowd of supporters, his ever-present cane in hand. Later, he crouched and waved the cane back and forth, rousing people in a traditional warrior dance. Doves were released into the air.

Visiting El Fasher, he landed at the same airport where rebels blew up government planes in April 2003, in an attack that a report last year by the ICC prosecutor described as a “turning point” that greatly escalated the war.

Al-Bashir’s troubles in Darfur began a few months after that attack, when ethnic Africans in the remote western region took up arms against his Arab-dominated regime because of what they consider discrimination and to press for a larger share of state funds and services.

His government is accused of using allied Arab militiamen known as janjaweed to commit atrocities seeking to cow rebel supporters. Al-Bashir and other officials deny doing that.

Critics of al-Bashir characterized the trip as a stage-managed affair to bolster Sudan’s efforts to rally allies in hopes of getting the Security Council to suspend any arrest warrant by the ICC.

“It’s all a show and a sham,” said Jill Savitt, executive director of Dream for Darfur, an initiative that has sought to pressure China to use its influence as a major trading partner of Sudan to pressure al-Bashir into improving security in Darfur.

Darfur refugees have told relief workers they are “overjoyed” al-Bashir has been charged, said Savitt, who was not in Sudan.

Jerry Fowler, president of the Washington-based Save Darfur Coalition, said, “Whenever al-Bashir or his regime is under pressure, they try to do just enough to alleviate the pressure, and that’s what he’s doing.”

If no arrest warrant is issued for al-Bashir, he will “go back to business as usual,” Fowler said.

ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo indicted al-Bashir last week on three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes. He has asked the ICC to issue an arrest warrant for Sudan’s leader, but it will be months before a panel of judges rules on the request.

Those in the cheering crowds rejected the negative view of their embattled president. “If he weren’t good, do you think his government would have lasted 19 years?” asked Asia al-Sidik Ibrahim, a 32-year-old airport security assistant.

Sweat dripped from the president’s forehead as temperatures hovered above 100 degrees. Al-Bashir changed his clothes twice during the day, choosing light brown suits in slightly different shades.

His language was colloquial, peppered with references to Islamic verse and local Darfur traditions.

“We know God, and we fear him. We also fear the prayers of someone who has suffered injustice,” the 64-year-old leader said.

Al-Bashir avoided any mention of the charges against him, but alluded generally to the case by calling it an attempt to foil his government’s efforts to restore peace in Darfur. Sudan will not be intimidated by the threat of sanctions either, he said.

“We will only bow to God, who is the sole provider,” al-Bashir said.

Without mentioning the ICC prosecutor by name, the president said: “Every time we take a step forward, make progress and signs of peace emerge, those people try to mess it up, return us to square one and distract us with marginal issues and false allegations.”

At a sunset rally in the town of Nyala, al-Bashir touted what he called his accomplishments in the troubled region, such as increasing the number of schools in Darfur from seven to 195 over his 19 years in power.

Al-Bashir did acknowledge “injustices” in Darfur, but he did not specify them or identify those he thought responsible.

“Yes, we all know that there have been problems in Darfur and we know that there have been injustices,” he said. “But we, from day one, sought to bring peace for all the people of Darfur.”

PARIS — The prosecutor at the International Criminal Court formally requested an arrest warrant on Monday for Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the last five years of bloodshed in the Darfur region of his country.

The prosecutor’s pursuit of Mr. Bashir introduced new volatility to the already chaotic situation in Darfur. While some diplomats and analysts worried that the move would undermine efforts to negotiate peace and provide aid to the millions displaced by violence, others said it offered new leverage to pressure the Sudanese government to end the conflict in Darfur.

Bracing for reprisals, United Nations peacekeepers and aid workers stepped up security in Darfur and pulled out all but the most essential civilians. Sudan promised not to vent its outrage on them, but said it would unleash a “diplomatic war” to try to scuttle the case.

It is the first time the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has brought genocide charges against anyone. It is also the first time the prosecutor has brought charges against a sitting head of state since the court opened its doors in 2002. Two other presidents, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Charles Taylor of Liberia, were charged by other international war crimes courts, also while they were in office.

Darfur has been a shifting, many-sided conflict, with rebels fighting rebels, government-backed Arab militias killing civilians and one another, freelance bandits attacking aid workers and atrocities committed by all the armed groups.

In announcing the request, the prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said Mr. Bashir had “masterminded and implemented” a plan to destroy three main ethnic groups in Darfur, the Fur, the Masalit and the Zaghawa. Using government soldiers and Arab militias, the president “purposefully targeted civilians” belonging to these groups, killing 35,000 people “outright” in attacks on towns and villages.

“His motives were largely political,” the prosecutor said. “His alibi was a ‘counterinsurgency.’ His intent was genocide.”

Mr. Moreno-Ocampo, of Argentina, said that the Sudanese president had turned against civilians after failing to defeat a rebellion, and that the genocide consisted of more than direct killing. “Al-Bashir organized the destitution, insecurity and harassment of the survivors,” he said. “He did not need bullets. He used other weapons: rapes, hunger and fear.”

At a news conference at the court in The Hague, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo said he had handed his evidence to the three judges who will decide whether to issue an arrest warrant. An answer is expected in the fall, lawyers at the court said.

If the past is any guidance, the judges may well sign the arrest warrant. They have signed all 11 warrants the prosecutor has requested since he took office five years ago.

Genocide charges are the gravest any court can bring, and the prosecutor is expected to implicate others at the top of the Sudanese government.

But the request for a warrant against Mr. Bashir seemed unlikely to lead to his arrest soon. Mr. Bashir has scoffed at two arrest warrants the court has already issued against two other Sudanese figures, even promoting one of them to minister of humanitarian affairs.

“We will resist this,” said Rabie A. Atti, a Sudanese government spokesman. “Everybody in Sudan — the government, the people, even the opposition parties — are against this.”

He contended that Mr. Bashir was innocent and that the international court was “a stooge” for Sudan’s enemies. But he made it clear that the government would not retaliate against the thousands of United Nations and African Union peacekeepers in Sudan or against aid workers.

“Nothing will happen to the U.N. because of this,” he said.

An important question is whether the United Nations Security Council will intervene in the case. The Council itself in 2005 asked the court to investigate the Darfur crisis, but it has the authority to suspend an investigation or prosecution. Since the prosecutor notified the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, last week of his plan, Council members have met privately, with China and Russia warning that a direct move against the Sudanese president would jeopardize any future peace talks.

The joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur said Monday that it would continue operating in the region, but other aid organizations have temporarily evacuated some of their workers from Darfur to the capital, Khartoum.

Senior diplomats in Washington and London, along with United Nations officials, were working Monday to decide how to respond to the announcement. But in Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement, the most formidable rebel group in the region, ruled out negotiations with the government in light of the genocide charges.

“We will not negotiate with a war criminal,” Tahir El Faki, the movement’s legislative commander, said in a satellite telephone interview from Darfur, where the group’s commanders have gathered to plan a new assault. If Mr. Bashir does not turn himself in, he said, “all the commanders and young fighters here with me are willing to go to Khartoum and remove him by force.”

Still, several analysts contended that the prosecutor’s action would provide a new opening to restart blocked peace talks.

“The peace process is dead,” said John Prendergast, a former Clinton administration official who is a co-founder of Enough, a group that seeks to end genocide. “Suddenly, a new variable has entered the equation in the form of the request for an arrest warrant,” he said. “While the I.C.C. judges consider this request over the next two months, there is a new point of major leverage over Bashir.”

Nick Grono, deputy president of the International Crisis Group, said that with an arrest warrant looming, Mr. Bashir might feel compelled to show “credible moves towards peace” in the hope of persuading the Security Council to intervene.

“It may force the regime to realize that its options are diminishing,” Mr. Grono said.

Before making his announcement, the prosecutor said he knew that some diplomats wanted him to delay, contending that peace was more important than justice. But he seemed undeterred.

“Some people have said that for me to intervene at this point is shocking,” he said in a recent interview. “I say what is going on now is shocking. Genocide is going on now, and it is endangering the lives of many more people.”

At first, the prosecutor said, the government attacked from the air, and used Arab militia, called the janjaweed, on the ground to destroy villages. “They kill men, children, elderly, women; they subject women and girls to massive rapes,” the prosecution’s summary says. “They burn and loot the villages.”

Such violence has displaced “almost the entire population” of the ethnic groups under attack, the prosecution contends. “Now the attacks are on the refugee camps,” Mr. Moreno-Ocampo said in the interview. “And the government is hindering humanitarian aid as part of its plan.”

In the 10-page summary provided Monday, the prosecution drew a tough portrait of Mr. Bashir’s actions, saying it had tracked all the known attacks between 2003 and 2008 and shown the government’s genocidal strategy to attack civilian towns and villages.

The prosecutor’s charges include three counts of genocide for killing members of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups; five counts of crimes against humanity for murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape; and two counts of war crimes for attacks on civilian populations in Darfur and for pillaging towns and villages. The United Nations estimates that 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have been displaced in the conflict.Mr. Moreno-Ocampo said he had “very strong evidence that al-Bashir controlled everything, the generals, the intelligence, the ministers, the media. The janjaweed militia called him directly for instructions.”

Lawyers close to the court said that Western governments may have assisted with the investigation — providing intelligence like aerial surveys and electronic eavesdropping. “It is obvious that something must be done; the peace process has stalled and the humanitarian disaster only keeps growing,” a European diplomat said.

Peacekeepers in the region, there as part of a hybrid United Nations and African Union force, are particularly vulnerable to government retaliation, diplomats and analysts say. Seven peacekeepers were killed in an ambush last week, and the force has been struggling to simply protect itself.

Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende (Christian Democratic Party) gave all members of the cabinet a novel to read on their holidays: the book What Is the What from American writer Dave Eggers.

Last year, too, the prime minister gave his ministers and secretaries of state a book to read, said minister Ella Vogelaar of the Living Neighborhoods and Integration Labor Party today in the TROS radio show ‘Kamerbreed.’

What Is the What tells the story of a boy who is a refugee from the civil war in Southern Sudan.

No homework

According to Vogelaar, the Prime Minister’s book selections have come to be a tradition. Last year the members of the cabinet received a book about people who went missing under the Junta in Argentina.

“It always relates to a contemporary issue,” says Vogelaar, who claims reading the book “does not feel like homework at all.”

The ministers and state secretaries received the book yesterday during the last Council of Ministers before the recess, a spokesman for the prime minister affirms.

Is genocide really that bad?

As President Bush and the Group of 8 leaders who are meeting in Japan again shun their responsibilities in Darfur, there is a serious argument to be made that genocide is overrated as an international concern. The G-8 leaders implicitly accept that argument, which goes like this:

Genocide is regrettable, but don’t lose perspective. It is simply one of many tragedies in the world today — and a fairly modest one in terms of lives lost.

All the genocides of the last 100 years have cost only 10 million to 12 million lives. In contrast, every year we lose almost 10 million children under the age of 5 from diseases and malnutrition attributable to poverty. Make that the priority, not Darfur.

Civil conflict in Congo has claimed more than 5.4 million lives over the last decade, according to careful mortality surveys by the International Rescue Committee. That’s at least 10 times the toll in Darfur, but because Congo doesn’t count as genocide — just as murderous chaos — no one has paid much attention to it.

Does a mother whose child dies from banditry, malaria or AIDS grieve any less than a mother whose child was killed by the janjaweed?

The world has been trying to pressure Sudan to stop slaughtering Darfuris for nearly five years, yet the situation in some ways is worse than ever. In contrast, we know how to combat malaria, child mortality and maternal mortality. The same resources would save far more lives if they were used for vaccinations and bed nets.

So instead of pushing President Bush to worry about Darfur, where it’s not clear he can make a difference, get him to focus on bed nets or deworming or iodizing salt in poor countries or stopping mother-to-child transmission of the virus that causes AIDS or so many other areas where his attention could have a humanitarian impact.

Genocide is horrific, but that doesn’t make it a priority.

This is a coherent and legitimate argument, and there are moments when I catch myself sympathetic to it.

Yet in truth, genocide has always evoked a transcendent horror, and it has little to do with the numbers of victims. The Holocaust resonates not because six million Jews were killed but because a government picked people on the basis of their religious heritage and tried to exterminate them. What is horrifying about Anne Frank’s diary is not so much the death of a girl as the crime of a state.

There are also practical arguments, for genocide can create cycles of revenge and displacement that make it far more destabilizing than any famine or epidemic. The Darfur genocide may well lead all Sudan to fragment into civil war, interrupting Sudanese oil exports and raising oil prices.

The Armenian genocide still festers after nearly a century; and former President Bill Clinton has said that his greatest foreign-policy mistake was his failure to respond in Rwanda. In the same way, the G-8’s collective shrug today about the Darfur genocide — because the victims are black, impoverished and hidden from television cameras — will be a lingering stain.

After five years of genocide, President Bush still hasn’t taken as simple a step as imposing a no-fly zone or even giving a prime-time speech about it. He gave Beijing a gift, his pledge to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympics, without pushing hard for China to suspend military spare-parts and arms deliveries to Sudan.

The Islamic world has been even more myopic, particularly since the victims in Darfur are all Muslim. Do dead Muslims count only when Israel is the culprit? Can’t the Islamic world muster one-hundredth as much indignation for the genocidal slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Muslims as it can for a few Danish cartoons?

This coming Monday, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is expected to seek an arrest warrant in connection with Darfur, and his past statements suggest that it may be for the Sudanese president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, for genocide. That would be a historic step requiring follow-through.

A personal note: I have seen children dying of AIDS and hunger; I have had malaria and been chased through the jungle by militias. I want the G-8 to address all the aspects of global poverty, yet nothing affects me as much as what I have seen in Darfur.

I tilt obsessively at the windmills of Darfur because, quite simply, its people haunt me: the young woman who deliberately made a diversion of herself so the janjaweed would gang-rape her and miss her little sister running in the opposite direction; the man whose eyes were gouged out with a bayonet; the group of women beaten with their own babies until the children were dead.

Yes, genocide truly is “that bad.”

To anyone tracking the international community’s muddled efforts to broker peace in Darfur, last week’s decision to appoint a new mediator, Burkina Faso’s Foreign Minister Djibril Bassole, is welcome news. But it is only a small first step in building a peace process that can end more than five years of genocide and bloody conflict.

The joint United Nations/African Union mediation has ground to a halt in recent months, and the Government of Sudan, its militia proxies, and several rebel factions remain convinced that military victory in Darfur is possible. Mr. Bassole is an experienced mediator–he helped broker a 2007 peace agreement in Cote d’Ivoire–but jump-starting Darfur negotiations will require vision, leadership, consultation, and, above all, the support of the international community.

Since 2004, peacemaking efforts for Darfur have been hamstrung by competing initiatives and a lack of leverage. The negotiations in Abuja, Nigeria, that led to the failed 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement are illustrative of all that has gone wrong. The African Union mediation team and the 16 international “observers” quarreled over how to structure the talks. High-level U.S. and European diplomats opted for “parachute diplomacy”, dropping in on the talks and making demands with minimal follow through.

The negotiators in Abuja also failed to take into account the concerns of the victims of the conflict–particularly women, internally displaced persons, and non-aligned Arab groups. In the end, only one rebel leader signed the agreement, which accelerated the splintering of Darfur’s rebels and pushed the conflict in dangerous new directions. If Mr. Bassole is going to chart a new course, he must quickly learn from his predecessors’ mistakes and demonstrate leadership from day one.

- First, Mr. Bassole must demand the support of a full-time team with expertise in all of the relevant areas under negotiation. The issues are complex–power and wealth sharing, disarmament of militias, return of displaced persons to their homes, land rights, etc. He must establish a clear end-state for negotiations (perhaps through a draft agreement), set the agenda, and drive it forward.

- Second, Mr. Bassole must demand backing from a small group of countries with leverage on the government and the rebels. Ideally, these would include the United States, United Kingdom, France, and China. It is especially critical that the Chinese are at the table. In the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, activists have demonized China for its policies in Darfur, and deservedly so. But that window of opportunity to pressure China will be over in less than two months, and the international community must urgently build consensus for lasting solutions in Sudan.

- Third, Mr. Bassole must adopt the perspective of a much broader array of stakeholders than just the Khartoum government and the rebels. Internally displaced people, refugee populations, and Darfurians in the Diaspora have consistently and clearly articulated workable solutions to the challenges facing Darfur.

The United States been rightly focused on the deployment of a UN-led peacekeeping force to protect civilians, but it must pay equal attention to a peace process that has careened off the rails. Absent U.S. support to get that process back on track, Mr. Bassole’s could be the latest failed attempt to end Darfur’s five year nightmare.

KHARTOUM – Sudan’s former north-south foes must maintain a sense of urgency to keep the peace deal that ended Africa’s longest civil war on track, an international monitoring body said on Wednesday.

July 9 marks the mid point of the six-year interim period during which all parts of the deal and democratic transformation should be implemented, including elections, power and wealth sharing and culminating in a southern referendum on secession in 2011.

“Rapid progress on outstanding issues — first and foremost on the Abyei road map and on the border — is now vital to sustaining momentum in the CPA,” the Assessment and Evaluation Commission (AEC) said in its mid-term report.

“The new tasks ahead are formidable,” the international body charged with monitoring the deal added.

The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) has been largely neglected by the international community which has focused on a separate conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region. But north-south clashes have brought focus back onto the deal, which ended a civil war that claimed 2 million lives.

The head of the AEC, Derek Plumley, said the Abyei crisis where clashes in May destroyed the capital of the oil-rich state claimed by both of the former foes, was the greatest challenge to the peace deal and urged both sides to push ahead with resolving the dispute.

“If you’re looking for top priorities the most immediate thing is to implement the Abyei protocol,” he told reporters. “That is a key area of tensions that could explode.”

He added demarcating the north-south border where much of Sudan’s oil lies and preparations for free elections on time in 2009 were also crucial.

The report said new legislation had to be passed ahead of elections for the first democratic vote in 23 years in Sudan.

“To ensure a free and fair environment, the security and broader reform legislation envisaged in the CPA will need to be in place in advance of the election campaign,” the report said.

Plumley said the former north-south foes must show more willingness to speedily implement the deal to make unity attractive ahead of the 2011 referendum.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband visiting Khartoum on Wednesday said the CPA was top of the agenda of his talks with officials including President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

“The next three years are absolutely critical in following through on the CPA,” he told reporters after meeting Bashir. “We want to see all elements of the AEC report followed through.”

Calling the situation in Sudan fragile, he said world attention would remain focused on Africa’s largest country.

The political geometry of Sudan defies resolution. No sooner had a framework been agreed for the provisional settlement of the North-South conflict in 2002 than the war in Darfur blew away all conventional wisdom about how the country could achieve peace and stability. The twin challenges of deciding whether Sudan is one country or two, and seeking a more inclusive and democratic system of government, combine to create an equation with no solution. For decades, Sudan’s leaders have tried to manage the unmanageable by alternating doomed revolutionary projects with simply buying time. The latter—in which tactical crisis management drives out strategic problem solving—has been the order of the day for the last decade. Today, the ruling party hopes that oil money will sufficiently change the game for them literally to purchase a solution.

On every main political question debated in Khartoum, Juba, and Darfur, Sudanese are sharply polarized. There is no consensus on religion and the state, on the identity of the country, or on whether Sudan is one country or two. International mediators have done a fine job of identifying median positions, but the middle ground rarely commands support from those with power. Many Southerners see the Comprehensive Peace Agreement as the waiting room for separation; most Northerners believe it gave unfair concessions to the South that should be clawed back in due course. The substantive issues of dispute between Darfur and Khartoum can theoretically be resolved on paper, but the political interests in supporting compromise are far too weak to prevail. The demographics support a “New Sudan” in which the provinces rule the historic center; the money dictates the reverse.

For ten years, Sudan has consumed more international energy than any other African crisis. As the UN Mission in Congo scales back, the UN Mission in Sudan, the UN-African Union Mission in Darfur, and the European Force in Chad are by far the greatest investment of political and financial resources on the continent. In addition there is a stand-alone Darfur peace process, the referral of the Darfur case to the International Criminal Court, and a small army of Special Envoys from the U.S., Britain, the EU, and elsewhere. No other African conflict comes close.

Yet international traction on the Sudanese crisis remains insufficient to achieve peace, democracy, civil protection, and justice. For many activists, the end points are straightforward, and what’s lacking is simply the increased international effort to get there. A fair number of Sudanese agree with this. The problem is that those who control the money and power don’t.

The opening up of the oilfields a decade ago has placed an immense resource in the hands of Khartoum—latterly shared with the SPLM—and created a powerful incentive to cooperate. Unlike almost every other state at the brink of collapse, Sudan faces a medium-term prospect of rapid economic growth, which is possible only while the two major adversaries cooperate. Because the oil is in the South but is pumped out through the North, either party has the ability to turn off the tap—at which point both of them lose. And as the price of oil climbs and more production comes on stream, Northern and Southern elites contemplate the prospect of more money than either had ever anticipated. If Sudan follows its current economic trajectory, and the country’s patronage systems work as they have done in the past, we can expect ever-closer mercantile collaboration between the two leaderships in Khartoum and Juba, overriding their still-divergent political programs. Sudan’s finance centralizes.

Sudan’s oil wealth should be sufficient to provide all citizens with enough for a decent life and confidence in the nation. In time that may occur. Existing oilfields are expected to continue producing at current levels for half a decade. Thereafter, further expansion of production depends upon opening up recently discovered oilfields, which are scattered across a wider area and which will demand greater infrastructural inputs and wider political stability if they are to be exploited successfully. Other important sources of economic growth are Sudan’s booming urban sector and revived plans to turn the country into the “breadbasket of the Middle East” with agricultural investment from the Gulf states.

In the meantime, the ruling elites in Khartoum face two huge obstacles to achieving stabilization through inclusive patronage.

One is the referendum in South Sudan scheduled for 2011—the single biggest issue in Sudanese politics. When the right of self-determination was agreed at Machakos in 2002, it was seen as a victory for the SPLM over the National Congress Party (NCP). So indeed it was, but it is increasingly the SPLM’s problem, because the party contains both separatists and unionists, and coming to a decision on the party’s stand on unity or separation would almost certainly result in a split. Thus far, the SPLM’s preferred means of dealing with this problem is to postpone facing it. Meanwhile, SPLM cohesion is best maintained by confrontation with the North on polarizing issues such as the NCP’s failure to implement CPA provisions. And while the hard questions are deferred, the oil is pumped and the money keeps flowing, with both NCP and SPLM hoping that time and rent will solve the problem.

However, with neither party’s leadership stable and unified, there is an ever-present possibility of unforeseen events upsetting today’s precarious co-existence. Either NCP or SPLM is capable of acting in a manner that confounds those who expect them to pursue their own interests. The spark for an unexpected miscalculation could be an internal dispute within the leadership, possibly all-but-invisible to outsiders until it erupts.

The Abyei crisis of May and June 2008 illustrates the Sudanese enigma in microcosm. The question of where to draw Abyei’s border has no solution that is acceptable to both sides, and it is not in the interests of either to make the compromises necessary. The NCP wants to concede as little as possible irrespective of any prior agreements because it considers those agreements imposed and unfair—it could do better if the internationals weren’t involved. The SPLM seeks a confrontation to advertize the NCP’s backsliding, demand more concessions, and maintain its internal cohesion.

The background to the Abyei crisis is the NCP’s failure to implement past commitments. The spark for the confrontation was SPLA violence, surely intended as a means of bringing in U.S. mediation in order to extract concessions from the NCP. Khartoum responded with militia attacks that amply demonstrated its readiness to use exemplary violence. However, a real war served the interests of neither. So an interim deal was struck based on a mutually beneficial financial share-out which kicked the political issues down the road for later resolution. A timetable was set for resolving these, but the characteristic Sudanese game of strategic delay then resumed, with both sides colluding in the slippage.

The NCP calculation is that these kinds of crises can recur indefinitely and that as time passes the financial interests of the Southern elite in making a deal will ensure that they do not tip over into full-scale secessionist war. The SPLM remains indeterminate because it cannot come to a conclusion without facing a split. The suffering of Sudanese citizens through violence, hunger, and homelessness is the outcome of this pattern of political partnership.

The second big complication is Darfur. Without significant known oil reserves in Darfur, there is no common financial interest between Darfurians and Khartoum that could lead to a cooperative political deal. By contrast, the interests of the leaders of the armed movements are served by the status quo. Today, their allegiance is a prize competed for by Khartoum, N’Djamena, Tripoli, and the international community. Until time is called on this auction of loyalties, no settlement is in prospect. Khartoum is not prepared to outbid its rivals by making an offer that would satisfy the rebels’ high aspirations, preferring instead to try to remove one competitor (Chad’s Idriss Deby) by force of arms and wait out another (the internationals). The NCP’s calculation is that when foreign interest in Darfur wanes, a cheap deal will be on the cards, and that oil money will buy the Darfurian elites into the subordinate position they possessed before the crisis.

Current international engagement with Sudan is motivated by sympathy for the groups that have been historically marginalized and by outrage at the atrocities inflicted by the Sudan government and its proxies. The aim of the strategy is to change the game into a cooperative one that advantages the marginalized. The combination of oil and high-level diplomacy succeeded in the South. Greater international efforts have failed in Darfur because the domestic incentive structures are not conducive for a settlement. To the contrary, foreign engagement has encouraged the rebels’ aspirations and fuelled the government’s fears, without altering the basic calculations of either. The activists are correct that the world doesn’t care enough to stop the killing in Darfur. Realism dictates that we ask, what is the bill for caring enough? Most probably, “enough” requires an order of magnitude increase in effort.

Short of vastly increased commitment, international support for Sudan’s marginalized contributes more to polarization than resolution. The worst case scenario is a return to a North-South war. Over the next year, the outgoing and incoming U.S. administrations have to be particularly careful that they do not inadvertently send signals that encourage militants to resume war.

A more probable outcome is recurrent crises on the pattern of the recent Abyei confrontation that do not slip over into full scale war. This would be a cycle of NCP foot-dragging, SPLM confrontation, a temporary deal on revenue-sharing, with the hard political issues postponed, perhaps indefinitely—with the ever-present anxiety that a misstep by either side could light the match on a conflagration. Given today’s intractable political geometry, maybe the best we can hope for is buying time.

Alex de Waal is Program Director at the Social Science Research Council. For more of his writings, please visit his blog, “Making Sense of Darfur” .

Geneva — The Government of National Unity of Sudan, the Government of Southern Sudan and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), signed here today an agreement to support the reintegration of 180,000 ex-combatants and to facilitate their successful transition back to civilian life.

The signing took place at a Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) Donor Conference, co-chaired by UNDP and the Government of Japan. At the conference, donors reiterated their full support to the Sudan DDR programme, requiring US$430 million over a four-year period.

With a focus on reintegration, this agreement builds on the achievements of the disarmament and demobilisation pilot phase launched in 2006 with some 24,000 members of the Sudan Armed Forces already pre-registered, and 26,000 others pre-registered by the Popular Defense Forces. In addition, nearly 5,300 women associated with armed forces and groups, and 17,500 disabled combatants were identified as eligible beneficiaries. All these candidates will be included in the initial 180,000 beneficiaries.

‘We recognise the importance of beginning a credible and transparent DDR programme in Sudan, and welcome the support of donors to this reintegration component. We need to ensure that our former combatants have the means and opportunities available to play an active role in civilian life and in the rebuilding of Sudan,’ said Elias Nyamlell Wakoson, State Minister for International Cooperation, in the Government of National Unity.

The programme will provide assistance in support of social, economic, and psychological reintegration. Moreover, it will enhance the ability of local institutions to ensure the long-term sustainable reintegration of ex-combatants.

Over the next four years, the programme, will be led and implemented by the DDR Commissions of North and South Sudan, with support from the UNDP. ‘We welcome the Government of Sudan’s leadership in taking forward the DDR programme, and aim to assist the building of national and local capacities to support national ownership of the process. The dividends of peace are long overdue. Employment generation and re-integration of former combatants is key to this process,’ said UNDP Associate Administrator Ad Melkert.

DDR forms a critical part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) for Sudan, signed in January 2005, ending the longest civil war in Africa. Mobilising funds for this reintegration component prior to the start of national DDR throughout Sudan is key to ensuring that the disarmament and demobilisation of former combatants will be sustainable and will contribute to a secure, stable and peaceful Sudan.

‘It must be seen in a broader context of support to peace and national reconciliation, post conflict stabilization, peace building and conflict reduction,’ said Ameerah Haq, UNDP Resident Representative in Sudan ‘The reintegration programme will thus complement existing Government and UN programming that focuses on building peace at the community level.’

Programme activities are slated to begin immediately.

Heavy rain and continuing violence are threatening UN food aid to Darfur just at the moment that refugees need it most

UN humanitarian organisations operating in Darfur belatedly acknowledged this week that conditions are poised to deteriorate rapidly for some 4.3 million conflict-affected persons in the vast western region of Sudan, which for five years has been the site of genocidal counter-insurgency warfare. A “perfect storm” of threatening developments is brewing, warned UN humanitarian coordinator Mike McDonough on Sunday, and there can be little quarrelling with his grim assessment. Most ominously, the UN’s World Food Programme reduced daily food allowances for beneficiaries in Darfur by almost 50% at the beginning of May. Now, the WFP and other UN agencies are warning that “at least 2.7 million people will be affected by a reduction for at least the next two months.” These next two months, unfortunately, are in the middle of the rainy season, which largely coincides with the traditional “hunger gap” between spring planting and fall harvest. Malnutrition rates are rising even as heavy rains will soon turn much of Darfur’s terrain into a sea of mud and a network of raging torrents, making food deliveries to many locations impossible by ground transport.

What prompted the WFP to cut rations to Darfur’s long-suffering civilians? Unsurprisingly, given the region’s increasingly violent character, the answer is insecurity, an issue that both UN and nongovernmental humanitarian organisations have repeatedly raised in the most urgent of terms. Food truck convoys, which must make the long trip from Khartoum through Kordofan Province and into Darfur, face the constant threat of hijacking. Drivers are beaten, robbed and too often killed. According to the UN, this year alone there have been 160 vehicle hijackings in Darfur, and eight humanitarian workers have been killed.

As a result, WFP drivers increasingly refuse to make the dangerous trip, and only approximately half the required food tonnage is reaching Darfur. The regime in Khartoum should of course provide military escorts for these critical, though highly vulnerable, convoys. But the National Islamic Front (National Congress party) comprises the very men responsible for orchestrating the Darfur catastrophe. Although they have mouthed various commitments about protecting food convoys, they have in fact done nothing of significance. Militarily, the regime is still responding to the ill-conceived attack on Omdurman, Khartoum’s twin city, in early May by the Justice and Equality Movement rebel faction. A proxy war against Chad, which has supported JEM, seems of considerably greater urgency to Khartoum.

But massively reduced food deliveries, while critical, are only part of a deteriorating humanitarian picture in Darfur. The fall harvests in both North and South Darfur (three-quarters of the region’s population) were disasters, and there is no evidence that this year will be better, given the terrible insecurity in rural areas. Indeed, the UN notes that 180,000 people were displaced from their homes in the first five months of 2008. And yet camps are already over-crowded, and in many the water tables are falling dangerously low. Both water and sanitation services are overstretched, the UN agencies note, and “diseases such as diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections in the forthcoming rainy season will be more severe if people are weakened by a shortage of food.” Khartoum bridles at public use of the word “cholera”, but both cholera and dysentery epidemics loom threateningly if people resort to drinking ground water.

Yet another problem is simply ignorance. Khartoum has compelled the UN organisations to suppress their own malnutrition studies, as well as those of nongovernmental organisations, thus making the most efficient targeting of resources impossible. Last fall, the last time nutrition studies were widely promulgated, malnutrition among children under five was above emergency thresholds. The UN now asserts that malnutrition is in line with what was observed last year at this time, but so much of Darfur is inaccessible (approximately 60% at any given time) that it is hard to know how to quantify the “spikes” in malnutrition reported. And the very fact that Khartoum has suppressed 11 studies, and has worked to limit the ability of humanitarians to gather new data bearing on malnutrition, reveals all too much of the regime’s attitude toward the people of Darfur and humanitarian efforts generally.

Shamefully, the UN organisations have been reduced to pleading, declaring that the monitoring of malnutrition and sanitation “can only succeed if aid agencies are able to undertake and release the results of surveys and assessments in a timely manner and without restrictions.” Without any tool or leverage to secure compliance, these organisations can merely state that “the government of Sudan must urgently enact its agreement to release the results of technically cleared humanitarian surveys – including nutritional and crop surveys.” But unless a four-year pattern of humanitarian obstruction is addressed meaningfully by the UN security council, pleading is all that will be left to aid workers.

Conscious of the impending rainy season, the UN organisations speak for the broader “humanitarian community in Sudan,” which is “warning that limited time remains to safeguard against an increasingly precarious situation.” But time is decidedly not on the side of the humanitarians. Recent regional weather forecasts predict that heavy seasonal rains will soon reach Nyala (pdf), the capital of South Darfur and a humanitarian hub. Much of the area affected by the rains, which gradually move northwards, peaking in August and September, will soon be impassable. The pre-positioning of food that has taken place in the past as a response to transport challenges during the rainy season is woefully inadequate this year.

How to improve humanitarian access? How to protect WFP convoys? How to provide the minimum security that will allow aid workers to continue? How to police the camps for displaced persons, which have become tinder-boxes of rage, despair, and too often ethnic tensions? Some argue that because there is no peace to keep, it makes no sense to have sent a UN peace support operation to Darfur. And to be sure, the UN/African Union “hybrid” mission for Darfur (Unamid), authorised by the UN security council last July, has proved barely distinguishable from its weak and ineffectual African Union predecessor. The shift to a UN command at the beginning of this year has been followed by deployment of only a few hundred additional personnel for a mission that was to have included more than 6,000 civilian police and more than 19,000 troops, all meeting UN standards for training and equipment. Altogether, only about 9,000 troops and police have actually deployed, and Darfuris are fast losing any confidence they may have had that this UN force would make a difference.

Let us be very clear, however, about the consequences of refusing to muster the international will and courage to make of the UN-authorised mission a success: humanitarians will leave, food distribution will come to a halt and massive starvation and disease-related deaths will occur in the near term.

Glib declarations that there is “no peace to keep” in Darfur skirt the true questions: Are we really prepared to see the world’s largest humanitarian effort collapse amid insecurity? Are we really prepared to accept the consequences of a precipitous end to international aid operations in Darfur? Are we really prepared to countenance the agonising deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians? There are no more urgent questions in the world today.

New York – An international coalition of over 40 nongovernmental organizations from all eight countries represented by the G8 called today on their nations’ leaders to forcefully advocate for concrete and immediate steps to end the crisis in Darfur.

In an open letter sent today, the coalition, which is led by Human Rights First and includes nongovernmental organizations from Sudan itself and from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, called on G8 leaders to insist on specific measures to address the Darfur crisis in the outcome statement issued at the end of the July summit in Hokkaido, Japan. These measures include the cessation of violence, the immediate deployment of the peacekeeping force (UNAMID), a halt to all arms transfers to Darfur, a recommitment to peace processes, and justice and accountability for atrocities committed.

“The crisis in Darfur takes a break for nothing, including the G8 meetings. These leaders have the responsibility to use their influence to pressure both Sudan and its partners whose actions or support fuel the violence,” said Betsy Apple, director of the Crimes Against Humanity Program at Human Rights First.

“The time for more hand wringing is well past. G8 members should issue a clear and unequivocal statement that they will put their full weight behind ending the crisis in Darfur,” she added.

The coalition is calling for a stronger, more specific statement than one issued during last year’s summit to include issues such as the flow of arms into Darfur. The G8 summit provides an opportunity to urge states to stop all arms transfers to Darfur in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1591 which imposed an arms embargo prohibiting all countries from shipping weapons that go directly or indirectly to Darfur. China is the largest provider of small arms to Sudan.

The coalition also seeks to address the violence in the region, through both increased peace efforts in Darfur and a recommitment to the North/South Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Finally, recognizing that peace and justice are interrelated, the coalition wants the G8 to unequivocally stand for justice and accountability for atrocities committed by parties to the conflict.

“Efforts to establish peace have failed – violence is on the rise. Nobody is abiding by agreed terms, and nobody is being held accountable,” said Amir Mohamed Suliman, Chairperson of the Sudan-based Khartoum Center for Human Rights & Environmental Development.

The coalition members include:

Canada: Canadians Against Slavery and Torture in Sudan, Save Darfur Canada, STAND Canada.
France: Collectif Urgence Darfour, Fédération Internationale des Droits de l’Homme (FIDH).
Germany: Darfur-Hilfe Verein e.V, Society for Threatened Peoples.
Italy: Comitato Collaborazione Medica (CCM), Italians for Darfur, Missionari Comboniani, No Peace Without Justice.
Japan: Human Rights Now, Japanese for Darfur.
Russia: Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights, The Institute of Human Rights, The Moscow Helsinki Group.
Sudan: Khartoum Centre for Human Rights and Environmental Development, Sudan Social Development Organization.
United Kingdom: Aegis Trust, International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), Sudan Organization Against Torture.
U.S.A.: American Jewish World Service, Americans Against the Darfur Genocide, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Colorado Coalition for Genocide Awareness and Action, Darfur Action Group-Northwest Bronx/Yonkers, Darfur Metro, Dream for Darfur, ENOUGH,Essex County Coalition for Darfur,Genocide Intervention Network, Genocide No More-Save Darfur, Human Rights First, Humanity United, Investors Against Genocide, Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), Jewish World Watch, Jews Against Genocide, New York City Coalition for Darfur, Physicians for Human Rights, San Francisco Bay Area Darfur Coalition: Darfur Peace and Development, SaveDarfurWashingtonState, STAND, Stop GENOCIDE Now, Team Darfur, Westchester Darfur Coalition.

Almost a year has passed since the United Nations Security Council approved a civilian protection force for Darfur. But the United Nations-African Union mission in Darfur, known as UNAMID, is stunted. Only one-third of the troops are deployed, critical gaps exist in equipment and logistical support and the force has been repeatedly attacked. The Sudanese government systematically obstructs full deployment with total impunity.

The inability to deploy UNAMID is but one of a number of interrelated challenges that threaten to set the entire nation of Sudan on fire. These include the recent attack by Darfurian rebels on Khartoum and the worsening violence in Darfur; the destruction of the politically important and oil-rich town of Abyei by Sudanese government troops and allied militias; the faltering Comprehensive Peace Agreement which ended the decades long war between the north and south; and an ongoing proxy war between Chad and Sudan.

This report examines UNAMID’s status and the challenges it faces. It offers recommendations to overcome logistical and political hurdles to achieve full, effective deployment. If fully deployed and fully capable, UNAMID can save lives and protect civilians. For UNAMID to effectively provide protection and stability for the people of Darfur, however, it must be coupled with an inclusive peace process that is mindful of the interconnected crises in Sudan.

The world promised Darfur protection, but has failed to deliver it. The Security Council risks signaling that it is more serious about protecting the interests of repressive governments than in promoting global peace and security. To reverse this, the Security Council must lead in ensuring that UNAMID has all of the equipment and personnel it needs, and create real costs for those officials – government, rebel or militia – that would undermine peace, protection and justice in Sudan.

To date, the international community has not demonstrated the political will for UNAMID to succeed. It has not mounted an effective peace process to create the space for the force to achieve its ultimate goal of a stable Darfur. There are concrete steps world leaders must take in the short term to overcome UNAMID’s logistical and political obstacles and secure the lives and livelihoods of Darfur’s people.

UNAMID in the field

The United Nations-African Union hybrid command assumed official control of international peacekeeping operations in Darfur on December 31, 2007. It replaced a poorly equipped and ineffective A.U. force command structure but retained the A.U. troops. By June 5, 2008, the United Nations had added only a few hundred additional troops of the seventeen-thousand troops authorized to deploy. The Sudanese government and critical shortfalls in equipment hamper the force at every turn.

Despite these challenges, UNAMID has improved the breadth and quality of civilian protection. According to the most recent report to the Security Council from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, “[b]oth the military and … police components have expanded confidence-building patrols, which now cover more than 80 per cent of … camps in Darfur. In addition, patrols times have been extended.”

By maintaining a visible presence, these patrols play an essential role in making people feel more secure. During patrols, UNAMID troops and police engage with community leaders on security concerns and pay visits to essential service points. These improvements raise the hope that when fully deployed, UNAMID may significantly increase protection for Darfuri civilians.

UNAMID’s gains, however, are dangerously modest. Luis Moreno Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, recently reported to the Security Council that “civilians are being killed, houses burned and looted, markets and schools bombed, mosques destroyed,” underscoring the perilous situation in Darfur Moreno Ocampo further stated that the “crimes are conducted in a systematic and identical manner throughout Darfur.” Violence and insecurity displaced between 130,000 and 140,000 Darfuris since the beginning of 2008, some for the second and third time.

UNAMID still has no presence in some camps, and minimal presence in some of the remote villages that need it most. Although UNAMID has expanded confidence-building patrols, the force is not conducting extended, multi-day patrols. Daily patrols start after breakfast and end before dinner because the troops do not have the ability to sustain themselves with food and water for long periods of time. Around Nyala in South Darfur, UNAMID has enough resources only to patrol the ten internally displaced persons camps closest to the city center.

Bandits, rebel groups and the Sudanese army have attacked UNAMID at least four times. On January 8, 2008 the Sudanese Armed Forces shot at a UNAMID convoy, killing a driver. Force personnel have never returned fire during an attack. In one instance they were unarmed. In the most recent attack, a UNAMID police officer was killed in his vehicle while on duty. Each unanswered attack on UNAMID reinforces the perception that it cannot even protect itself, let alone the civilians in its care, harming its credibility with the civilian population it was sent to protect.

UNAMID in its present form cannot fulfill its mandate.

Sudanese Government Obstructions

The Sudanese government is the biggest threat to UNAMID. Khartoum has obstructed every attempt to deploy peacekeepers to Darfur, starting with the original A.U. mission. The government refused to accept the U.N. mission authorized under Security Council Resolution 1706 in 2006. They consented to the weaker UNAMID hybrid force in 2007, authorized by the new resolution 1769. But while the government accepted UNAMID in word, it persistently obstructs its deployment in deed.

Khartoum has erected a labyrinth of bureaucratic hurdles that block UNAMID’s progress even while it feigns cooperation. Together, these obstructions delayed the force for over ten months. Among these obstructions are:

1. Troops. The Sudanese government has not approved the list of troop contributing countries submitted by the African Union and the United Nations last October. Khartoum made ambiguous statements about allowing additional African battalions, a Thai battalion and two Nepalese companies, but no firm commitments. Responding to Sudanese government pressure, UNAMID expelled a British general who was a senior UNAMID official in late May. The general’s expulsion was reportedly because of his nationality and assertive work to implement UNAMID’s mandate.

2. Land. There is not sufficient land allocated to construct bases, barracks and other vital facilities. The force needs land in numerous locations with sufficient access to water for new bases and to expand existing bases. The government must provide land before UNAMID can begin the long process to plan and construct the facilities.

3. Flights. Despite signing a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) to allow for unrestricted UNAMID flight privileges, the United Nations reported in April that the government refuses its flights at night, effectively limiting UNAMID’s ability to move freely to fulfill its mandate. After the rebel Justice and Equality Movement attacked Khartoum on May 10, 2008, the government closed airports in Darfur for at least three days, cancelling all UNAMID flights.

On two separate occasions in April and May, the force was left with no choice but to evacuate injured civilians by road after government forces conducted aerial bombardments on several villages. The process was not only slow and inefficient, but unnecessarily dangerous. The recent bombardment of the village of Shigeg Karo, which killed up to 13 people, including 6 children, illustrates the detrimental effects of flight restrictions to the effectiveness of the force. Due to government restrictions and its unwillingness or inability to provide safe passage for UNAMID, responders did not reach the village for three days. As a result injured civilians with treatable wounds died, and others reportedly drove themselves to distant hospitals.

UNAMID’s rapid response capability is as crucial as the proactive patrols it undertakes, especially because it is currently understaffed and simply cannot be in all places at all times. It is vital that UNAMID be able to rapidly move assets, evacuate personnel and civilians and to monitor government and militia movement and violations through aerial surveillance.

4. Equipment. Before making a seven week journey to Darfur, equipment arrives at Port Sudan in eastern Sudan. It takes four weeks on average for the government to release equipment from Port Sudan and critical equipment has been repeatedly held up in customs. Troops can not deploy until specific pieces of equipment are in place and certain facilities are up and running. The government has refused to provide sufficient security for equipment travelling through territories it controls, slowing its movement and leaving convoys open to banditry and attacks.

Some previously resolved problems also continue to delay the force. The Sudanese government did not sign the SOFA governing the operation of UNAMID for six months after the U.N. authorized the force. The six-month refusal created hesitation for countries to provide troops, police and equipment, creating critical gaps that continue to plague the mission today. Worse yet, government approval of the SOFA has yet to translate into actual enforcement. SOFA authorizes UNAMID to move freely by land or air, but in practice government obstructions have prevented it from effectively exercising this authority. So far, the United Nations has not presented measures that hold the government accountable for violations of the letter and spirit of the SOFA.

The U.N. Security Council must demand Khartoum’s unconditional cooperation with UNAMID and create real consequences for any further obstruction. Individuals in the Sudanese government responsible for any future obstruction should be sanctioned immediately. Sanctions should be removed only when clear benchmarks are met and the force is clearly viable and has deployed.

The Security Council has a clear choice. It can demand Khartoum’s cooperation and impose real costs for intransigence. Or, it can continue to stand idly by and tolerate Khartoum’s obstruction.

Missing Resources

Government obstruction is UNAMID’s primary obstacle, but the force also lacks critical resources and capabilities. Even fully deployed, UNAMID can not improve security in Darfur unless troops can travel from their bases, communicate throughout the region, quickly gather intelligence, and rapidly respond to security incidents. To meet these needs, UNAMID urgently requires assets including:

1. Eighteen medium transport helicopters and at least four more tactical helicopters. Without them, UNAMID will have limited rapid-response capability and will be unable to reach many areas.

2. Aerial reconnaissance so the force can monitor and verify events and respond accordingly.

3. Medium and heavy transport trucks to move personnel and materials throughout the rugged terrain.

4. Additional engineers to build and expand installations necessary for troop deployment.

5. Multi-role logistical support units critical to the deployment and sustainability of infantry battalions.

Once these assets are identified and committed, it will still take months for the equipment to reach Darfur. Contributions must be made now for UNAMID to fulfill its mandate by the end of 2008.

If the force does not receive the necessary equipment and logistical resources, there is a real danger that the force will fail. U.N. member states must supply the mission they authorized right away. If they do not, UNAMID’s failure will be their responsibility.

It is also imperative that training for UNAMID’s African infantry battalions continue in tandem with the procurement effort. The U.S., France, and the UK are training and equipping African forces from Ethiopia, Rwanda, Malawi, Senegal, Ghana, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Burkina Faso in preparation for their duty in Darfur. The train-and-equip effort should prepare police units and additional troops as well.

Gender sensitivity and sexual violence prevention and response training should also be included. Systematic sexual violence is a major part of Darfur’s insecurity. While the United Nations Development Programme is currently training soldiers and police in programs on gender-sensitivity and sexual violence, these programs need to be expanded. Police units must receive special training in these areas because they will interact with civilians most closely on a daily basis.

Bureaucratic Hurdles at the U.N.

The U.N.’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) is working daily to organize and deploy UNAMID. It is the largest U.N. peacekeeping mission in history and it will work in one of the least hospitable places on the planet. It’s a Herculean task. U.N. member states must provide the force’s resources, but DPKO also needs to act with more determination.

When the U.N. took over Darfur peacekeeping operations, it cancelled most of the African Union’s multi-role logistics contract with a private U.S. company for services such as meals, water and vehicle maintenance. In June, the Sudanese government announced that they were seeking to terminate the full contract. More recently, the Government of Sudan banned U.S. companies from doing business with the peacekeeping force in Sudan. The United Nations has been planning for a peacekeeping mission in Darfur since 2006, but reports indicate that a new contract may not be in place before the end of 2008. This is simply unacceptable.

The United Nations must accelerate a contract for sustainment services and logistical support, and must not accept government interference with its implementation. The majority of battalions from African countries do not have the capacity to sustain themselves in the field. Some new, otherwise ready UNAMID battalions are unable to deploy because of this incapability. Most currently deployed battalions can not venture far from their bases. The United Nations has both the ability and the funding available to award such a contract sooner than the end of 2008.

DPKO must also work more quickly to build camps and barracks for additional troops, and must demonstrate flexibility in considering technical specifications for helicopters. The Concept of Operations breaks Darfur into three very large sectors of operation, with central basing for helicopters. The distances from the central hub to the edges of the sectors are too great for many helicopters to cover. As a result, it prevents possible contributors from providing helicopters and leaves only Russian-designed helicopters as suitable. If non-Russian design helicopters become available for the mission, DPKO should be willing to revise their plans to accommodate other helicopters.

Breaking the Deadlock

The primary impediment to full deployment of a capable UNAMID force is the Sudanese government. But the international community’s failure to provide necessary resources and bureaucratic hurdles at the United Nations are also to blame. Ultimately, the fate of UNAMID now falls on the shoulders of the U.N. Security Council member states that authorized it, especially its permanent five members. They must now demand compliance from Khartoum, contribute the necessary resources, and ensure swift implementation by the United Nations.

Tolerance in the face of clear obstruction of a U.N. Security Council resolution is unacceptable. It leaves the people of Darfur in peril and risks the credibility of the United Nations and of peacekeeping operations as a whole. Patience in the face of U.N. bureaucratic obstacles slows deployment and undermines the mission’s effectiveness.

The U.N. Security Council can and must summon the political will to act on behalf of Darfur and on behalf of the global peace it is mandated to protect. There are several urgent steps that can be taken:

1. The United States should use its Security Council presidency in June to convene a special session of the council, the Friends of UNAMID working group of nations, and the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations to overcome logistical and resource issues. The conference should be open to the public to hold member states accountable.

2. The Security Council should pass a second resolution on UNAMID setting clear benchmarks and targets for deployment.

3. The Security Council should impose sanctions on individuals, in or out of the Sudanese government, who obstruct deployment.

4. The Security Council should exercise stronger oversight of the DPKO to ensure that bureaucratic hurdles are swiftly resolved.

5. UNAMID should assign a military attorney to actively monitor implementation of the SOFA, as well other obstructions or violations by the government, its proxy militias, rebels and common criminals.

Conclusion

In May, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon offered a plan to deploy 80 percent of UNAMID by the end of 2008. Even this underwhelming goal will require urgent and steadfast action to accomplish.

Humanitarian conditions are deteriorating, violence is escalating, and security throughout Sudan is uncertain. The fate of millions of people in Darfur is at stake. By unanimously authorizing UNAMID, the U.N. Security Council tied itself and its credibility to the future of that mission. Almost a year of rhetoric from world leaders since that date has not resulted in substantial improvements on the ground in Darfur, leaving UNAMID’s success in doubt.

The greatest tests of U.N.-A.U. cooperation for years to come will be the effective deployment of the hybrid force in Darfur and the conclusion of a sustainable peace agreement. A failure to fully deploy UNAMID right away will undermine any future U.N.-A.U. initiatives and threatens the credibility of both institutions. Civilians in other African conflict zones will feel the effects of this joint model’s success or failure for years to come.

This is a joint report of the Save Darfur Coalition and the ENOUGH project which benefitted from the contributions of Katie Gualtieri, Omer Ismail, Alex Meixner, Amir Osman, Reid Rector, Gayle Smith and Julia Spiegel.

Despite five years of genocidal counter-insurgency warfare in Darfur, millions among its ravaged civilian population will soon enter a third month receiving only half the necessary food rations from the UN’s World Food Program (WFP). Despite the presence of the world’s largest humanitarian relief operation, the people of Darfur begin the current rainy season with only half the minimum kilocalorie diet necessary to sustain human life. Since the rainy season coincides with the traditional “hunger gap”—the period between spring planting and fall harvest—we may expect to see significant human starvation in the coming months, relentlessly adding to the hundreds of thousands who have already died from ethnically-targeted violence, displacement, and consequent malnutrition and disease. A grim genocide by attrition is set to enter its deadliest phase.

How can this be? And why don’t the alarms sounded by humanitarian organizations compel greater international response? Answers tell us too much about why Darfur’s agony shows no signs of abating.

Since the beginning of May, WFP has delivered to Darfur only half the required food tonnage. The reason is insecurity, as food convoys face the constant threat of violent hijacking. Drivers are beaten, robbed, and too often killed; as a result, they increasingly refuse to make the dangerous trip through the western part of Kordofan Province and especially inside Darfur. The Khartoum regime should of course provide military escorts for these critical, though highly vulnerable, convoys. But the National Islamic Front comprises the very men responsible for orchestrating the Darfur catastrophe. Although they have made soothing noises about protecting food convoys, they have in fact done nothing of significance. Indeed, an ill-advised Darfuri rebel attack on Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman in May has occasioned redeployment of military force away from the convoy routes. Those waiting for Khartoum to protect the vital corridors for urgently needed increases in foodstocks will wait in vain.

Indeed, Khartoum is much more interested in militarily supporting its proxy force of Chadian rebel groups, reportedly massing for a new assault on N’Djamena and the regime of Idriss Déby. Khartoum holds Déby responsible for supporting the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) attack on Omdurman, and this would appear to be the moment in which the regime means to settle the score.

Just as scandalously, the protection force authorized by UN Security Council Resolution 1769 (July 2007) has failed to improve security in Darfur, or to protect WFP convoys. Despite almost a year of opportunity, and two years of planning by the UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the UN/African Union “Hybrid” Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) is failing badly—and rapidly losing the confidence of Darfuris. Humanitarian groups repeatedly say in private conversations that they are fearful of being too closely associated with UNAMID because its growing failure is perceived by Darfuri civilians and rebels as a sign that it has implicitly sided with Khartoum. This perception haunted the previous weak, ineffective, and vastly under-manned African Union mission in Darfur, AMIS. In fact, AMIS has simply been “re-hatted” with UN blue helmets (sometimes painted by the soldiers themselves) and slightly augmented to make up what is called “UNAMID.” Last November UN head of peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno asked all too presciently:

“Do we move ahead with the deployment of a force that will not make a difference, that will not have the capability to defend itself and that carries the risk of humiliation of the Security Council and the United Nations and tragic failure for the people of Darfur?”

The question answered itself at the time, and now we are seeing the consequences of this “tragic failure.”

Moreover, the fact that Khartoum has engaged in a widespread and largely successful campaign of obstruction of UNAMID deployment only fuels the deep anger and resentment among the people of Darfur who feel, with justice, that they have been abandoned. Khartoum refuses to allow key battalions of troops, engineers, and special forces to deploy, has deliberately attacked UNAMID forces, and has looked on with indifference as its Janjaweed militia allies recently humiliated a UNAMID patrol in West Darfur, taking the soldiers’ weapons and communications gear. For their part, the militarily capable nations of the world have done painfully little to augment UNAMID, or to confront Khartoum over its obstructionist tactics. As a consequence, UNAMID currently operates without required logistics, without critical transport capacity (especially helicopters and trucks), and without other essential military equipment. Of a planned 26,000 civilian police and troops, only about 9,000 are presently deployed, most AMIS holdovers.

Insecurity has not only severely compromised the delivery of food into Darfur, it has also diminished access to what the UN estimates are 4.3 million conflict-affected persons scattered throughout a region the size of France. The consensus among humanitarian workers on the ground is that they have access to only about 40% of this vast population—leaving as many as 2.5 million people without reliable access to food, clean water, and primary medical care. Further compromising humanitarian abilities is a relentless and intensifying campaign by Khartoum officials to abuse, harass, and threaten humanitarian workers. Many workers on the ground report morale is at its worst since major humanitarian efforts began in summer 2004.

There are other causes for the deepest concern. Malnutrition rates, especially among children under five, had risen above the emergency threshold last fall, following a disastrous harvest in South and North Darfur (three-quarters of Darfur’s total population). And yet important subsequent malnutrition studies have not been disseminated because Khartoum has objected, and humanitarian organizations—fearing a loss of access—have acquiesced. UNICEF bears particular responsibility in this arena, as does the humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, Ameerah Haq (see my April 24, 2008 assessment at http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article212.html). Just as troublingly, new malnutrition studies and collections of data are also being obstructed by Khartoum’s génocidaires. Theirs is a patent desire to obscure the growing threat of widespread, engineered starvation.

But such a risk grows by the day. Suleiman Jamous, previously the senior rebel humanitarian coordinator and the most reliable of rebel leaders, recently told me he expected that there would be large-scale starvation in rebel-held areas (the vast majority of Darfur), at least among communities without any livestock reserves. Not nearly enough food has been pre-positioned prior to the rainy season, a season that makes much of Darfur an impassable sea of mud and raging streams. Without food pre-positioned in Darfur, there are insurmountable logistical obstacles in providing adequate food to the immense and badly weakened populations most at risk. Jamous also told me that he believes well over half the “banditry” so often invoked in explanations of insecurity in Darfur is anything but random: Khartoum either acquiesces, is complicit, or actually orchestrates the attacks that have claimed the lives of so many humanitarian workers, and so attenuated humanitarian access.

Tens of thousands of civilians continue to be displaced—over 150,000 in 2008 so far. Many were displaced during the large-scale scorched-earth campaign north of el-Geneina in February—and a significant number of these fled into eastern Chad and extremely uncertain humanitarian conditions. The camps for displaced persons have long been badly overcrowded, and there is no way to accommodate many of the newly displaced. Moreover, water tables for potable water are dropping dangerously, increasing the risk of deadly water-borne disease during the rainy season, especially in camps where water provision is already below international standards.

What must not be lost in any understanding of the current phase of Darfur’s humanitarian crisis is the deliberation with which it has been engineered. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, recently offered to the UN Security Council (June 5, 2008) a searing indictment of the Khartoum regime. Invoking the horrors of Nazi Germany and the UN failure at Srebrenica, Moreno-Ocampo declared that the evidence he has accumulated over more than two years of sustained investigation, authorized by the UN Security Council, “shows an organized campaign by Sudanese officials to attack civilians, in particular the [non-Arab] Fur, Massalit, and Zaghawa, with the objective [of] physically and mentally destroying entire communities.”

There could be no clearer assertion of genocidal intent.

Moreno-Ocampo was just as unsparing in describing consequences of violent attacks by Khartoum’s regular military forces and its Janjaweed militia allies:

“Such attacks are calculated to drive entire groups into inhospitable areas, where they die immediately, or into camps, where they die slowly.”

Moreno-Ocampo continually emphasizes the organized and systematic nature of Khartoum’s actions:

“In the camps, crimes and insecurity are organized.”

“Rapes of women are systematic.”

“Usurpation of [non-Arab] land is systematic.”

The conclusion is ineluctable: “The evidence shows that the commission of such crimes on such a scale, over a period of five years, and throughout Darfur, has required the sustained mobilization of the entire Sudan state apparatus.”

In response to such violence—as well as the failure of the international community to provide security for Darfuri civilians, and the monumental failure of the “Darfur Peace Agreement” (May 2006; Abuja, Nigeria)—Darfuri rebel groups have become a huge part of the security problem in Darfur. Some, it must be noted, are much more culpable than others: there is little in common between the remaining vicious forces of Minni Minawi’s “Sudan Liberation Army” (the sole signatory to the DPA) and those of SLA-Unity, certainly insofar as Suleiman Jamous has a voice in the policy and actions of the movement. But the fractious nature of the rebel groups may have become insurmountable—the real legacy of Abuja.

Even so, it is a travesty to suggest, as Alex de Waal recently has, that “it is hard to make a moral distinction between the sides [Khartoum and the rebels]” (BBC “Viewpoint,” May 21, 2008). Indeed, it is difficult not to see de Waal’s absurd claim as a continuing and perversely stubborn defense of his role in the Abuja peace process, which has apparently fatally compromised any chance for a real peace process. For having secured all it wanted in Abuja, Khartoum now declares it will negotiate on no basis other than the hopelessly flawed Abuja accord. For their part, once betrayed, the rebel groups flatly reject the “Darfur Peace Agreement” as a starting point for a new agreement.

There is of course no peace to keep in Darfur, and no prospect for meaningful peace negotiations. And the rebels bear tremendous responsibility. But it is extraordinarily disingenuous for de Waal to write an article entitled “Why Darfur Intervention Is a Mistake” and make no mention of the primary argument for the actual and indeed only conceivable “intervention”—that of UNAMID. The mission has a mandate, with UN Chapter VII authority, to protect humanitarian operations that are presently on the verge of collapse or withdrawal. These are the very operations that de Waal credits for dramatically reducing mortality rates in Darfur. But of course nothing could be clearer than if there is no more robust intervention by the UN-sanctioned operation, security will continue to deteriorate, and it is only a matter of time before it will be impossible to “keep that aid effort going,” as de Waal enjoins.

De Waal is joined by his frequent co-author Julie Flint in this refusal to acknowledge that whatever the limitations of the present UNAMID, the force must either be made to work or humanitarian operations will cease and hundreds of thousands of civilians will die—many very soon because of rising malnutrition. Flint unleashes a tendentious tirade against the human rights, policy, and advocacy organizations that have pushed hard for a UN force to protect civilians and humanitarians in Darfur. She also indulges the truism that there is “no peace to keep” in Darfur (the title of her May 23, 2008 article in The Guardian [on-line]). No one can argue with this, which suggests just how valuable a statement it is. Nor would anyone disagree with the proposition that the key to Darfur’s future is a credible, good-faith peace process with effective international mediation.

But nowhere in her account of what UNAMID should become does Flint mention the critical need to protect WFP food supply corridors, humanitarian operations, and humanitarian workers. Flint glibly speaks of the peace talks that will take place “once the immediate danger of conflagration is past.” But nowhere does she acknowledge that dangers in Darfur are poised to explode, and that the primary danger is a lack of effective, mobile, aggressive protection of humanitarian operations, corridors, and personnel. Camps housing some 2.6 million displaced people are tinderboxes of rage and despair; without effective UNAMID policing, and secure access for humanitarians, they will explode. The grim truth is that after five years, it is all too clear that Darfur makes nonsense of such a phrase as “once the immediate danger of conflagration is past.”

Do we care enough to avert impending large-scale starvation in Darfur? Is there a willingness to demand of Khartoum the freedom to collect and disseminate data bearing on malnutrition in an effort to target food resources most effectively? Will WFP be able to provide people with more than half the food they require to live? Will 2.5 million conflict-affected persons regain secure humanitarian access? Will Khartoum’s vicious harassment and intimidation of humanitarian workers be halted?

The questions have been clear for months; sadly, so too have the answers.

The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor has compared aspects of the Sudanese government’s behaviour in Darfur to that of Nazi Germany.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo said officials were covering up and denying crimes. “We’ve seen it before,” he told the UN Security Council in comments which were strongly rejected by Sudan. “The Nazi regime invoked its national sovereignty to attack its own population, and then crossed borders to attack people in other countries.”

Sudan’s ambassador to the UN said the comments were “fictitious and vicious” and harmful to the prospects of peace.

Mr Moreno-Ocampo ’s report comes as UN ambassadors are in Darfur to see the situation. He delivered his report in New York to those UN Security Council members who have not travelled to Darfur and other African trouble-spots. He said the “whole state apparatus” of Sudan was implicated in crimes against humanity in Darfur. “The entire Darfur region is a crime scene. Despite promises and denials over the last five years, millions of civilians have been targeted by officials who vowed to protect them. Impunity reigns. Today we have an historic opportunity to confront those massive crimes,” he said. Explaining his comparisons to Nazi Germany, Mr Moreno Ocampo added: “Sudanese officials protect the criminals and not the victims. Denial of crimes, cover up, and attempts to shift responsibility are another characteristic of the criminal plan in Darfur.”

He repeated his earlier call for the council to demand that Sudan hand over two men who face charges of crimes against humanity.

Appeasement

The UN delegation is meeting some of the two million Darfuris who have fled their homes, as well as local officials and members of the under-strength UN-African Union peacekeeping force.

“We really have to see how the people of Darfur live,” said South Africa’s UN Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo. By accusing Sudan’s “whole state apparatus” of helping shield criminals, correspondents say, the ICC prosecutor is implicating some of the highest officials of the government, although he does not name any individuals. The treaty that created the ICC was intended to hold individuals, not entire states, responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Mr Moreno-Ocampo says the armed forces, intelligence services and the justice system worked together in Darfur, where at least 200,000 people have died in the five-year conflict. The US has said the killings of black Africans in Darfur amount to a genocide – but the UN has not used that term. Costa Rica’s foreign minister, pointing out the lessons learned from the international community’s failure to act in Bosnia and Rwanda, said there had been enough appeasement, and the time to continue accommodating evil had passed.

Promoted

The Sudanese ambassador to the UN responded angrily that his country would not bend to the will of the ICC. “We will never submit any of our citizens to be tried in The Hague,” Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed said. “Ocampo is destroying the peace process and we demand that this man be held accountable for what he is doing to the peace process in Sudan.”

Sudan has always denied charges that it organised the Janjaweed militias to take revenge on Darfuris, after black African rebels took up arms in 2003. But Mr Moreno-Ocampo says the pro-government Arab militias are still targeting civilians, who are being bombed, tortured, killed and raped. He again demanded that Sudan hand over Ali Kushayb, a leader of the Janjaweed militia, and Ahmad Harun, Sudan’s current humanitarian affairs minister. He said Mr Harun had been promoted and was now on a committee overseeing the deployment of UN and African Union peacekeepers.

The two men are charged with 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including acts of murder, persecution, torture, rape and forcible displacement. Both men have denied involvement in war crimes. Mr Moreno-Ocampo’s report states that the ICC is proceeding with two new investigations – one involving government activities in Darfur and the other related to attacks on peacekeepers and aid workers.

He said this included the Darfur rebels alleged to have been responsible for the killing of African Union peacekeepers in Haskanita last year.

Five weeks after ENOUGH issued its report “Sounding the Alarm on Abyei” the town of Abyei has ceased to exist. Brigade 31 of the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF, has displaced the entire civilian population and burned Abyei’s market and housing to the ground. These events were predicted, and absent effective word and action, they became inevitable. Somehow, the government of the United States of America missed all the signals—again. As this report goes to the press, the United States has not even made a public statement regarding the violence Khartoum instigated in Abyei, the resulting humanitarian emergency, the damage done to the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, or prospects for peace and democratic transformation in Sudan.

This paper is based on my travel to Abyei from May 16-17. For background on Abyei, please see ENOUGH strategy papers “Abyei: Sudan’s Kashmir” and “Sounding the Alarm on Abyei”.

Background

Comprehensive peace in Sudan hinges upon successful, peaceful resolution of the issue of Abyei, the volatile and oil rich area astride the boundary between North and South Sudan. Khartoum’s three-year failure to implement the CPA’s Abyei Protocol has resulted in skyrocketing political tensions, large-scale recent killings, and a rapid military build-up by all sides that caused experts to foresee the resumption of conflict in the region.

During my visits in February and March of 2008, I documented the illegal presence of Sudanese Armed Forces in the Abyei area. During this period, the Sudan Armed Forces’s 31st Brigade used terror tactics to systematically clear the population from the villages outside of Abyei town. The village of Todaj, for example, was rendered devoid of population due to nightly shooting by the Brigade. A nearby International Organization for Migration reception center, set up to assist returning people who had been displaced by Khartoum-inspired violence years earlier, was shut down.

The tension in the Abyei area was palpable. On May 13, an incident between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, or SPLA[1], police and SAF[2] occurred in Dokora village, about four miles north of Abyei. Violence exploded, quickly spreading across the area. On the afternoon of May 14, local officials reported heavy bombardment of Abyei’s civilian areas, as well as looting and burning of markets and homes by SAF forces. This precipitated the mass flight of thousands of civilians to safety in the South.

Abyei Emptied: May 16-17

Our first stop in Abyei town was to meet with U.N. civilian staff and the military peacekeepers from the U.N. Mission in Sudan, or UNMIS, mandated to monitor the situation on the ground. Despite their armored personnel carriers, the UNMIS contingent from Zambia was reluctant to move outside its headquarters and civilian U.N. staff did not have the access around town to be in a position to understand its condition. SAF’s 31st Brigade was visibly present in the town and remains so, as of the publication of this report. With assistance from the Joint Integrated Unit,[3] or JIU, and an SPLA detachment, we were able to access much of the town. It was empty. You could look the full length of streets and see no one. I counted only 10-12 civilians, several of whom appeared to be mentally unstable. The others, sneaking back to where their homes once stood, were evidently attempting to salvage any remaining blankets or belongings. The market had been looted and burned to the ground. Many structures were still smoldering. Block after block of traditional homes were reduced to ashes. Approximately 25 percent of the town’s structures were totally destroyed. Shortly after our visit, we received reliable reports that most of the rest was aflame.

Although there were a number of civilian casualties, most of the people of the Abyei area were able to flee. Local SPLM officials estimated 106,500 displaced people dispersed southward to nearly 20 sites, such as the town of Agok, a three day walk south of Abyei, where we spent the night of May 16. The vast majority arrived without belongings, and many families had been separated during their flight. Women wailed for their lost children. Although momentarily safe in GOSS-controlled areas, Khartoum’s terror tactics continued. The sound of overflights by the government’s notorious Antonov aircraft, a precursor to bombardment during the decades of the North/South war, further terrorized the population in the Abyei region.

The rainy season has begun in Abyei and surrounding areas, with desperate consequences for the displaced. That night in Agok it rained mercilessly and became quite cold. Without shelter, the coughs of infants and old folk began. Our communication with appropriate people in Khartoum, Juba, and Washington appeared to help jump-start an international humanitarian response, already begun by on-site local officials and NGOs such as Mercy Corps and Catholic Relief Services. With international sources now estimating 90,000 people displaced from their homes for at least the second time, Abyei’s former residents will likely require substantial assistance for the foreseeable future.

How Did We Get Here: A Policy Failure Foretold

Accounts following our visit detail extensive hostilities between SAF and the SPLA during May, with reportedly substantial casualties on both sides.[4] Although death is commonplace in Sudan, fatalities due to direct fighting between SAF and the SPLA, the military arms of the National Congress Party and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement respectively, has been rare since these parties signed the CPA in January 2005.

How could this have happened? Many complex factors boil down to two interconnected issues:

1. The ultimate cause of this most recent violence is the failure of President Omar Bashir and the NCP to implement the Abyei Protocol of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Bashir signed the CPA, including the Abyei Protocol, more than three years ago, and it is now clear that he will not implement it. An array of ghastly consequences could follow from this decision, but the evidence shows he and the NCP could care less. They will have their way. Period.

2. Why is Khartoum getting away with this strategy? The United States has empowered Bashir to take his “devil may care” approach. When it comes to Sudan, the United States is in meltdown mode and Khartoum knows it. The very administration that energetically created the environment that enabled the CPA turned impotent on Darfur and now stands by watching the CPA stagger and twitch. Although the United States literally wrote the Abyei Protocol, the Bush administration has since shown little interest or understanding of the issues, and has actively engaged in a policy of appeasement.

Khartoum all the while has pursued a decidedly two-faced approach. Only a couple of days before the Gotterdammerung began in Abyei, the NCP asked that the SPLA be tasked with helping to defend Khartoum from JEM, a Darfur rebel group that recently launched an attack on a suburb city of the capital. The SPLM decided not to fulfill the request, but Salva Kiir did rush to Khartoum while Presidnt Bashir remained safe in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, while Abyei was burning, Vice President Ali Osman Taha gave a speech at the SPLM political convention, assuring the South Sudan officials that the CPA would be fully implemented.

The “Normalization” Initiative: Appeasement in Action?

The U.S. government is currently engaged in a process that has become known as “normalization” talks with Sudan, the first of which were held in Rome in mid-April. Special Envoy Richard Williamson heads the U.S. team. The Khartoum team is headed by Presidential Assistant Nafie al Nafie, Sudan’s former security chief who decided to host Osama bin Laden during the mid-90s. Although this process has occurred off-camera and outside the limelight, documents associated with the normalization talks surfaced in the New York Times on April 17.[5] The initial U.S. document, supplied to me by the New York Times for my comments, included a strong statement concerning Abyei: “This process of improving the bilateral relationship will end if new violence is initiated in or by Sudan. For example, the bilateral relationship will not improve if violence escalates in Abyei or Chad.” The government of Sudan’s response characterized the overall initial U.S. statement as “disappointing” but expressed a wish to proceed with the normalization talks because, it said, “The Special Envoy characterized the [U.S.] proposals as a living document, and as such we prefer to see how this document would look after our response is incorporated in it.”

On May 27, the day after the SPLM Secretary General Pagan Amum asserted that because of the Abyei attack, the two parties were “on the verge of civil war,” the SPLM announced that it would not participate in the normalization talks with the U.S. Special Envoy, suggesting that the talks held so far may have emboldened Khartoum to attack Abyei.

Normalization talks are scheduled to resume in Khartoum on May 30. Given the absence of a public U.S. government response to the violence and displacement in Abyei, the failure to make any effort to prevent these events, and the clearly stated position that violence in Abyei would bring an end “normalization” talks, the meeting scheduled for the end of May to continue this discussion is deeply worrisome. U.S. government failure to follow through on Abyei has major implications for the prospects of CPA fulfillment and a possible return to war.

What Next? Urgent Steps for the Short Run

The administration should:

Postpone any further “normalization” talks until Khartoum:

a. Removes the 31st Brigade and any other illegal Khartoum-affiliated military from the entire Abyei region. First Vice President of Sudan and President of the Government of Southern Sudan Salva Kiir Mayardiit spoke with President Bashir about removal of the 31st Brigade from the Abyei area some weeks ago and received a positive commitment, never fulfilled. Perhaps a joint demand by the United States and its “troika” partners (the UK and Norway), along with the First Vice President, will obtain a more practical positive response.

b. Accedes, at minimum, to interim boundaries and an interim administration of the Abyei area in accordance with the Abyei Protocol, without prejudice to a final settlement on these issues, along with a disbursement of the oil revenues due to the Abyei administration under the Protocol, in order to provide services to the area.

c. Agrees to fully fund the return of Abyei’s displaced to their now-destroyed homes, properties and businesses, with an appropriate initial deposit to the Government of South Sudan or the United Nations to show good faith within 30 days.

The U.S. Congress should:

Specifically increase its oversight of the executive branch’s actions with regard to Sudan in this period leading up to a transition in administrations. Pursuit of constraining actions by the Congress may be in order.

The U.N. Security Council should:

Ensure that the UNMIS presence in Abyei town is reinforced with a permanent U.N. military and civilian presence to effectively monitor the situation, accurately report conditions on the ground, and promote local reconciliation.

Those that care about Sudan must be especially alert to the full spectrum of U.S. government activities regarding the entire country. We cannot be parochial. Abyei should matter to all who care about peace and democratic transformation in Sudan. For there to be a solution in Darfur, there must be full implementation of the CPA. For the CPA to bring peace to Sudan, the crisis in Darfur must be addressed.

What has just happened in Abyei may turn out to be Sudan’s defining moment. Abyei is recognized by most Sudan experts as a uniquely important bellwether of war or peace between Khartoum and Sudan’s South. Combat directly between the NCP’s military and that of the SPLM has just occurred in this volatile area. Interested parties should have done everything within their power to prevent this. That did not happen. There is still time to prevent a return to full-scale war throughout the entire country. The Bush administration must step up and make sure the international community is doing all it can to bring peace to all of Sudan.

International agencies are still assessing the humanitarian situation around the disputed Sudanese town of Abyei, following days of fighting between northern and southern Sudanese forces. As Derek Kilner reports for VOA’s East Africa bureau in Nairobi, the town has returned to calm but the fighting highlights concerns about the prospects for a 2005 peace agreement.

Fighting that began last week between the northern Sudan Armed Forces and the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement has displaced tens of thousands. The fighting has left the town of Abyei in ruins and largely empty.

The U.N. has estimated that 60,000 to 70,000 people have been displaced. But Saleh Dabbakeh, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Sudan says reliable estimates are difficult to come by.

“There are a lot of displaced people. Nobody really knows the exact numbers, but it could be anywhere between 30,000 to 100,000 people. It’s mainly estimates by people who have not been there,” he said.

Insecurity has hampered efforts to make a full assessment. An initial ceasefire was secured on Sunday following the first round of clashes. But on Tuesday, fighting broke out again after southern troops attacked northern forces in the town.

Since Tuesday, Abyei has remained calm, but fears of further clashes remain. The UN had planned to hold talks between the two sides on Wednesday but those have been put on hold.

Members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, in the southern capital of Juba for the party’s national convention, say they are discussing a way forward. On Wednesday, the president of the semi-autonomous southern government, Salva Kiir – who is also Vice President in the national coalition government – criticized the North for targeting civilians in Abyei and for a lack of commitment to the agreement the two sides signed on the region.

Nevertheless both sides have reiterated their support for reaching a ceasefire as well as an agreement on replacing their troops with joint units composed of soldiers from both sides and establishing a temporary administrative body for the town.

Government spokesman Rabie Atti expressed optimism. “The situation now is quiet and there is a will from SPLM and the government to solve this problem and to establish a temporary government up to the completion of the demarcation of border between South and North,” he said.

Beyond security concerns, Dabbakeh says access to the area is made difficult by poor roads, particularly during the current rainy season. Red Crescent staff have been sent to the area. But in the town itself, he says, the only ones to attend to are the dead.

“The main assignment of this team would be to bury dead people in the city, somewhere between 100 and 200 people. Nobody else is doing it,” he said.

Control of the Abyei area, one of Sudan’s main sources of oil, has been a major point of contention between the north and south. The north has refused to agree to a ruling on the area’s boundaries by a commission established as part of the 2005 peace agreement.

The area is set to vote on whether to join the South or the North in 2011, at the same time as a separate referendum in the South on whether to secede from the North.

Both the North and South maintain large numbers of troops in Abyei, and analysts have long feared that a dispute in the area could trigger a resumption of broader conflict between the two sides.

Analysts say that Darfur is Rwanda in slow motion, that we should send troops to protect African civilians from their Arab killers and disarm the infamous Janjaweed.

In the Rwandan genocide, a million people were slaughtered in a hundred days. It was Africa’s holocaust. Few would have opposed a short sharp episode of colonial-style armed intervention to stop it.

The British Foreign Secretary, David Milliband, certainly leans towards such a policy for Darfur.

“Too many times, in the aftermath of mass atrocities, we’ve promised ‘never again’,” he said.

“But in a world where so many states remain wedded to the principle of non-interference and the primacy of sovereignty, how do we make the responsibility to protect a reality, not a slogan?”

His are good intentions but they pave the way to a problem from hell.

Darfur is a war – a horrible war, but first and foremost, it is a war.

Ninety per cent of the deaths occurred four to five years ago and the government and its militia proxies were the main culprits.

Today many fewer are being killed and it is hard to make a moral distinction between the sides.

The rebels started the recent offensives – notably the attack on the capital, Khartoum – some Arabs have switched sides, and Chadians have plunged in on both sides.

The UN peacekeepers are too few and too poorly equipped to make a difference.

“Send them helicopters!” we are told. But helicopters will not stop this war.

Responsibility to protect

If government and rebels want to fight they will fight and the best thing for peacekeepers to do is keep their heads down.

When the rebels attacked the capital on 10 May, the vast and vastly expensive peacekeeping operations were just bystanders.

Should we not protect civilians?

Each month 100 civilians are killed by one side or another and there will probably be more when the army tries to clear rebel strongholds after the attempted putsch.

UN patrols around the displaced camps could stop many of these killings and monitors following army operations can deter others. I am all for this.

But let us not pretend that they would stop the war.

Like emergency food rations, this sort of protection is a stop-gap measure that saves lives until a political solution can be found.

The one thing that has really worked in Darfur is emergency relief.

It has kept millions alive.

Humanitarian aid in wartime is an exercise in making a disaster just about tolerable.

Relief is now so proficient that death rates among Darfur’s children have been brought down to pre-war levels. We should keep that aid effort going.

But these measures are not enough for the advocates of the “responsibility to protect” – R2P in the jargon. They want military intervention, preferably by Nato, as in Kosovo.

Let us have no illusions about what that would mean.

First, the Sudan government would close down the humanitarian operation. How many tens of thousands of lives might that cost before peace came?

Some believe that threatening a Kosovo-style aerial attack would frighten Khartoum into surrender.

That is a big gamble. In fact, it might make both sides fight harder and longer.

Khartoum believes Nato peacekeepers are the camel’s nose poking into the tent and the rest of the beast intends to follow.

President Omar al-Bashir fears the West’s aim is regime change or secession for Darfur.

And we are not disabusing them.

American Congressmen are calling for Kosovo-like action.

French troops are supporting Chad’s President Idriss Deby, who is in a state of war with Sudan.

Quite logically, Khartoum is doing its best to stop the UN operating freely in Darfur.

It is also destabilising Chad.

The UN protests that it is not the vanguard of an invasion, just a poor overstretched peacekeeping force.

That it is, but the UN Security Council authorised it to use force to protect civilians.

It is trying to chart a middle way between fighting and peacemaking. And it is finding that no such middle way exists.

And the rebels think that if Nato comes in, the Sudanese government will be driven out and the province will be handed over to them, as in Kosovo.

So why make peace if you can have it all by hanging tough?

What if we actually used force against Khartoum?

Might it work, or might we find ourselves with an open-ended commitment to policing a violent and divided region of the world, part of the problem and not the solution?

David Milliband asks, “How do we make the responsibility to protect a reality, not a slogan?”

But it is just a slogan.

In big and complicated wars – like Darfur – successful armed intervention is so unlikely that it is foolish even to make the threat.

What Darfur needs is old-fashioned peace and peacekeeping and state-of-the-art humanitarian technology. RIP R2P.

Alex de Waal is the co-author of a new edition of Darfur: A New History of a Long War.

The United Nations estimated last week that 30,000 to 50,000 residents of the oil rich Abyei region of Sudan fled their homes last week as fighting broke out there. To understand the broader significance of Abyei, I instruct readers to turn to the Enough Campaign, which has called the region “Sudan’s Kashmir,” and warns that Abyei may be the place where the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Accord (which ended the 20 year civil war between the North and South) is dealt its final death knell.

Here’s why.

During the CPA negotiations, the north and south were unable to reach an accord on Abyei’s administrative status. The logjam over Abyei threatened to undermine the entire CPA so the United States–which was a key player in overseeing the CPA negotiations–drafted the section on Abyei and pressured both sides to sign.

Though the North in principal agreed to the Abyei protocol, it has obstructed its implementation. In fact, according to Enough Campaign expert and former State Department official Roger Winter, the NCP has refused to implement any of its provisions of the Abyei protocol, leaving the region, “without government, without services, without boundaries, without security, and without a clear future.” To make matters worse, the government of Sudan has mobilized thousands of ethnic-Arab Misseriya men into the Sudanese Army. This is problematic because in late spring (i.e. around now) the Misseriya, who are Arab neighbors of the landed Ngok Dinka, traditionally migrate their herds through Ngok Dinka territory in and around Abyei.

So this is what is behind the recent outbreak of violence there. But it is also part of a larger strategy in which Khartoum is seeking to obstruct and delay the critical national elections (which were called for under the CPA to be held in 2009).

These elections, if held, may tip the political balance of power in Khartoum away from the ruling National Congress Party (NCP). The NCP is growing increasingly unpopular nationally and there is a distinct possibility that should these elections be conducted freely and fairly, the NCP will no longer dominate the government. In fact, there is a strong chance that the southern rebel movement may actually win these elections, and quite possibly form a ruling parliamentary coalition that excludes the NCP. So, to avoid that outcome, the NCP is trying to obstruct these elections by playing tribal groups against each other in order to shape the demographic makeup of the various administrative regions of Sudan to its electoral advantage. The NCP hopes to delay these elections, or forge temporary self-serving alliances to determine its outcome.

The flare up in Abyei is a manifestation of that strategy. How the international community responds will pretty much determine whether or not peace and the democratic transition of Sudan can be achieved. It may seem like an obscure side-note to the unfolding tragedy in Darfur, but resolving Abyei is quite central to the prospects of peace for the whole country.

One of the great foreign policy risks right now is that Sudan’s north-south war will start up again. The last round of that war killed more than 2 million people, and the next round would be just as deadly. My fear is that the Darfur conflict will be remembered just as the prologue to an even bloodier war that engulfs all of Sudan.

If so, the war will start in Abyei, a dusty little town not far from Darfur. I visited Abyei in February and wrote about the tensions there. Now the tensions have erupted in fighting, and the market place whose picture tops the column has been completely destroyed. At least 30,000 people (more than 100,000 by some counts) have fled, after heavy fighting with machine guns and mortars, as well as bombing by the northern side. These internally-displaced people will be dying in large numbers unless they get food and shelter soon.

The U.S. and international community can still try to contain the fighting — otherwise, we may soon have a civil war in Sudan that will disrupt the entire region. The Enough Project, which fights genocide, has excellent research on Abyei and Sudan, as well as good recommendations for policy-makers. Roger Winter, who has written several of the Enough reports, emailed me to say: “Abyei no longer exists as such. It is entirely devoid of population; its houses and markets burned to the ground.

Saturday’s attack on Sudan’s capital by Darfurian rebels threatens to spark regional conflict and the breakup of Africa’s largest country.

The dreaded prospect of the Darfur conflict sparking a national or regional war moved a step closer this week following Saturday’s audacious attack on Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, by a leading Darfurian rebel faction, the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem) headed by the messianic Khalil Ibrahim.

The attack, involving up to 3,000 fighters, took Sudan’s government and military, the UN’s Darfur envoys and almost everyone else by surprise. The immediate reaction among analysts was to dismiss it as a crude, symbolic bid by Khalil to increase his political leverage ahead of possible power-sharing talks with Khartoum.

Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, had a different take. He concluded that Chad’s government was behind the attack and promptly broke off diplomatic relations. “These forces come from Chad, who trained them. We hold the Chadian regime fully responsible for what happened,” he said.

On the face of it, Bashir’s claim looks plausible, given a long history of both Sudan and Chad harbouring and arming rebel forces hostile to the other. Chad’s president, Idriss Déby, and Khalil hail from the same Zaghawa ethnic group. In February, Chadian rebels based in Sudan nearly succeeded in seizing the presidential palace in Chad’s capital, Ndjamena.

But in the aftermath of last Saturday’s attack on Omdurman and Khartoum, a more dramatic – and alarming – interpretation of what happened has come to the fore. Leading Sudan expert and author, Alex de Waal, says the Jem assault was no mere raid. It was a carefully prepared, all-out coup attempt against Bashir’s government. “Its aim was nothing less than taking power,” he said.

The supposed Chad connection was mistaken, de Waal wrote in his Social Science Research Council blog. Following a “peace summit” between Bashir and Déby in Dakar earlier this year, Chad had scaled back its support for Jem and, when he learned of the plan to attack Khartoum, Déby tried to stop it.

Other Darfur rebel groups also refused to join forces with Jem, he said. But instead of backing off, Khalil fast-forwarded the plot, sending columns of light vehicles carrying heavily-armed fighters speeding by night across the desert towards the confluence of the Blue and White Niles.

According to de Waal, Khalil’s utter conviction of the justice of his fight for greater devolved power in Darfur, coupled with an “extraordinary, arrogant self-belief”, convinced him that his small force could prevail. Like Che Guevara, the Jem leader subscribes to the doctrine, adapted for jihadi use, that a small guerrilla band can trigger a mass revolution, he said.

If so, it did not work. Instead, the ultimately futile street fighting with Sudanese government troops and tanks marked a new low in the ongoing internecine strife among Sudan’s Islamists that forms a backdrop to the Darfur crisis and the country’s several other internal conflicts.

In the hours after Khalil was bloodily beaten back, a round-up of opposition members and alleged rebel sympathisers began in Khartoum. Among those detained was Bashir’s former ally, the once prominent Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi who has been accused of links to Jem. Several hundred people are still being held, according to Human Rights Watch and state media. Meanwhile a bounty of $250,000 has been place on Khalil’s head.

Coinciding with new fighting in the Abyei oil region of southern Sudan between former rebels and government forces and continuing violence in Darfur itself, the instability and divisions in Khartoum are feeding fears of a wider national or regional conflagration.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, expressed “grave concern” that the Jem attack could indirectly undermine the already creaking Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended decades of north-south conflict. Other UN officials are warning that “another major cycle of violence and large-scale human displacement” is in store in Darfur as the government goes after Jem, other rebel factions and possibly their Chadian backers.

France is also expressing alarm. Its troops form the largest component of an EU force based this year along the Sudan-Chad border. The French foreign ministry demanded accelerated deployment of a 26,000-strong UN-African Union peacekeeping in Darfur. So far, only 9,000 troops have shown up for duty. And if all that were not bad enough, there is talk that Khartoum’s perceived weakness may encourage a rekindling of separatist and resource conflicts in eastern and northern Sudan.

For the US and other western governments primarily concerned to end the Darfur crisis, these rapid developments may force a reappraisal of their hostile policy towards Sudan’s government. Bashir’s regime may be objectionable in many ways. But the alternative of national collapse and fragmentation of Africa’s largest country is more alarming by far.

Michael Kuch can afford to talk to his mother in Australia on the phone, but he can’t afford to see her.

In fact, Kuch, 25, has not see his mother since 1989 when he was 5-year-old living in Sudan.

His village came under attack in the second Sudanese Civil War, so Kuch, like thousands of other displaced Sudanese children, was forced to escape — alone.

“The village was set to fire and there was a lot of shooting,” he explained. “At age 5, I had to run away and we were separated, my whole family.”

He walked 1,200 miles to safety and grew up in refuge camps. Eight years ago, he moved to the United States, where he has been studying and speaking about his experience.

He currently lives in East Falls and is about to graduate from Chestnut Hill College with a masters degree.

But his one remaining wish is to see his mother and siblings who survived the civil war and relocated to Australia.

Students at Harriton High School in Lower Merion are trying to help Kuch make his dream a reality. They held a fundraiser Wednesday night to try to raise the estimated $2,000 needed for the trip.

The idea came from junior Josh Millan.

“My mom interviewed Michael at Drexel University, and I found out his whole story and I thought it would be a great idea to reunite him with his mom,” Millan said.

Kuch said he may be a “lost boy,” but said knowing his mother and siblings are OK provides comfort. He just wants to see them.

“Thank God she was safe and my siblings, who she is with, they are safe,” he said.

Kuch said he hopes to return to work in his village one day, saying it is peaceful there now but lacks basic infrastructure.

Summary: While the crisis in Darfur simmers, the larger problem of Sudan’s survival as a state is becoming increasingly urgent. Old tensions between the Arabs of the Nile River valley, who have held power for a century, and marginalized groups on the country’s periphery are turning into a national crisis. Engagement with Khartoum may be the only way to avert another civil war in Sudan, and even that may not be enough.

ANDREW S. NATSIOS, U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan in 2006-7 and Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2001-6, is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Few international issues have caught the attention of the American people as much as have the atrocities in Darfur. The Sudanese government and the Janjaweed militias, an Arab supremacist movement, have been carrying out a horrifying campaign of ethnic cleansing against African tribes. Some 2,700 villages have been destroyed, and as a result of the violence and the related starvation and disease, some 250,000 Sudanese have died, most in 2003 and 2004, and another two million have fled to refugee camps. The Bush administration has called these atrocities a genocide. U.S. human rights organizations, U.S. religious institutions, and a burgeoning U.S. student movement have organized a national campaign to ensure that policymakers in Washington do not overlook the crisis. Both the Democratic and the Republican candidates for president have put Darfur on their foreign policy agendas.

But while this crisis simmers, the larger problem of Sudan’s survival as a state is becoming increasingly urgent. Trends more ominous than even the carnage in Darfur could bring the country far more bloodshed soon. Long-standing tensions between the Arabs who populate the Nile River valley and have held power for a century and marginalized groups on the country’s periphery are mutating into a national crisis once again. The tenuous 2005 peace deal that ended the civil war between the Arabs in the north and the Christians and the animists in the south is in danger; new strains in these groups’ relations nearly broke out into a full-scale war late last year. Now, neither this situation nor the conflict in Darfur can be resolved without reference to the other. More crises loom as well. The Nubian people of the Nile River valley nearly rebelled last year over a dam project that threatened to destroy their homeland, and a 2006 peace agreement between the government and the Beja and Rashaida peoples in eastern Sudan is near breakdown. The year ahead may be the most important in Sudan’s postcolonial history: either the country holds free and fair multiparty elections and ends two decades of autocratic rule or it disintegrates, plunging this volatile region into its most severe crisis yet.

The Bush administration can still help avert such a disaster. It played a central role in initiating the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the deal that ended the civil war between the north and the south in 2005, facilitating negotiations between the parties, and then acting as one of agreement’s guarantors. When President George W. Bush appointed me to be the special envoy to Sudan in October 2006, he tasked me with monitoring the deal’s implementation. The U.S. government also initiated the international aid response to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and now provides 60 percent of the funds needed to run the refugee and displaced camps there. But Washington’s efforts today are misaligned with Sudan’s most pressing problems. Washington spends a disproportionate amount of its staffing and budgetary resources on resolving the crisis in Darfur rather than on supporting the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. This imbalance must be redressed urgently, because peace cannot be achieved in Darfur if it is not secured between the north and the south. The best way for Washington to proceed, moreover, is not by confronting Khartoum but by engaging it, even in the face of likely objections from the Darfur advocacy community. However much one may despise Sudan’s regime for committing atrocities, moral outrage is no substitute for practical policies aimed at saving lives and promoting stability.

THE GATES OF HELL

Although southern Sudan is extraordinarily rich in oil and mineral wealth and has great agricultural potential, it has been one of the world’s least-developed regions. Partly as a result of this and partly as a result of marginalization by the central government in Khartoum, the Christian and animist tribes of southern Sudan have been rebelling against the Arabs that populate the valley of the northern Nile, an area known as the Arab triangle, for much of the time since Sudan’s independence from the United Kingdom in 1956. The parties reached a peace agreement in 1972, but with enforcement lagging for years, a new rebellion, led by John Garang, a charismatic southerner and lieutenant colonel in the Sudanese army with a Ph.D. from Iowa State University, broke out in 1983. During the two decades that followed, the north suffered few losses, but an estimated 2.5 million southerners died and an estimated 4.6 million southerners were displaced or became refugees.

By early 2003, with both parties exhausted by the fighting, peace talks between the National Congress Party (NCP) in Khartoum and Garang’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) started to show signs of progress. But just then a rebellion led by an alliance of three African tribes — the Fur, the Masalit, and the Zaghawa — broke out in Darfur. Desertification and overpopulation in the region had led camel-herding Arab nomads to compete with African farmers for declining arable land, with Khartoum’s repression and its attempts to weaken the dominant Fur tribe complicating matters further. In 2003, Garang encouraged the rebels in Darfur to pressure the government by demanding a power-sharing agreement like the one he was negotiating for the south. To get the NCP’s attention, they launched devastating attacks on military outposts, airports, and police stations in Darfur. But the strategy backfired: fearing that rebels elsewhere would imitate those in Darfur, the NCP conducted an ethnic-cleansing campaign in rebel villages throughout the region. As the Africa expert Alex de Waal has written, the atrocities committed in Darfur in 2003 and 2004 were “a counter-insurgency strategy on the cheap.”

Meanwhile, Khartoum continued to negotiate with Garang. The south was already too strong militarily, its oil fields too lucrative, and the costs of the war too draining on the north for Khartoum to walk away from the talks. In January 2005, after mediation by a U.S.-led coalition of African and Western states, the parties signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The deal set up a confederal system, creating in Khartoum the Government of National Unity, a coalition government dominated by the NCP and including participation by the SPLM, and in Juba the semiautonomous Government of Southern Sudan, which the SPLM controls. It stipulated that the southern government should get half of all the revenues derived from oil pumped in the south. It also required that general multiparty elections be held by 2009 and that by 2011 the southerners conduct a referendum to determine whether they should secede from the rest of the country.

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement has been a partial success. The two new governments have been formed. Some $3 billion in oil revenues have been transferred to the south’s treasury. The south’s economy is beginning to boom. Most important, the war is over, and millions of displaced people are beginning to return home. But as many southerners point out, the more transformational elements of the agreement, which threaten the NCP’s hold on power, have yet to be implemented. In fact, the parties nearly returned to war last fall for just that reason. In March of last year, Khartoum temporarily suspended the oil-revenue payments on which the southern government relies to fund its army and civil service. Last June, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir canceled orders to withdraw northern-army field commanders still based in the south, even though the peace deal required their full removal by early July 2007. (As of January 2008, northern troops had left the south.) Khartoum then rejected the south’s generous proposals for resolving the status of Abyei, a disputed oil-rich area and the ancestral seat of the south’s most powerful tribe. The NCP was also stalling on drafting a new election law and carrying out a census, two measures that are prerequisites for the general elections scheduled for 2009. In response, in particular to the Abyei dispute, Salva Kiir Mayardit, president of the Government of Southern Sudan and the south’s leader since Garang’s death in mid-2005, withdrew his party from the Government of National Unity last September.

By October, the crisis verged on military confrontation, thanks partly to hard-liners in both camps who held exaggerated views of their own military power and underestimated the other side’s strength. Large units from both armies massed at disputed border areas. Three skirmishes occurred, including one that killed ten soldiers. President Bashir announced the remobilization of the Arab militia that had massacred thousands of southerners in the 1980s. In the end, Bashir and Kiir pulled back from war, and after eight contentious issues were resolved on paper, Kiir and other southern leaders rejoined the central government at the end of 2007. But the most controversial matter — the dispute over Abyei — remains, and command and control in both armies is tenuous at best. Thus, the potential for a local commander to initiate hostilities, which could quickly degenerate into general war, is still dangerously high.

Far more than the Comprehensive Peace Agreement is now at risk; the future of the state of Sudan is too. Even as they are supposed to cooperate in implementing the peace agreement, the north and the south are preparing to compete in the required elections. In a mature democracy, such tensions would be a recipe for acrimony, confrontation, and intrigue. In Sudan, they could mean another war. And as one respected African diplomat told me last October, “If the north and the south return to war, it will unlock the gates of hell.”

ACTING OUT

One of the enduring sources of instability in Sudan is the long-standing policies and tactics of the NCP. The party is a descendant of the National Islamic Front, a party promoting political Islam, which overthrew Sudan’s last democratically elected government in 1989 with the help of Bashir, then a general in the armed forces. The NCP has since quietly dispensed with the National Islamic Front’s original plan to spread political Islam across Africa and replaced it with a much simpler goal: staying in power. In 1998, the NCP expelled Hassan al-Turabi, the National Islamic Front’s leader and main ideologue, who had invited Osama bin Laden to Sudan. Moving away from Turabi’s vision, Bashir and the other emergent leaders focused on developing the country’s newfound oil wealth. The move has helped keep them in power, but they have committed so many crimes, stolen so much oil money, and alienated so many factions that support for them has dwindled sharply, even in their traditional strongholds in the Arab triangle.

Despite their survival instinct, the NCP leaders are anything but strategic. They are remarkably disciplined when it comes to short-term defensive tactics, but with the exception of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, they have developed few long-term strategies for dealing with any of Sudan’s worst problems. They react and temporize, they divide and rule, but they have sought no way out of the mess they have created. They are prepared to kill anyone, suffer massive civilian casualties, and violate every international norm of human rights to stay in power, no matter the international pressure, because they worry (correctly) that if they are removed from power, they will face both retaliation at home and war crimes trials abroad.

Many NCP leaders believe that the West — especially the United States but also Europe and the United Nations (which they believe is a U.S. front) — is out to depose them and facilitate Sudan’s breakup. They see the hybrid UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur as a pretense for carrying out this strategy and are especially fearful that it will collect evidence of the 2003-4 slaughters in preparation for war crimes trials before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. To them, the 3,000-strong European Union peacekeeping force being deployed along Chad’s border with Sudan is the vanguard of an invasion — which is one reason the NCP helped try to overthrow the government of Chadian President Idriss Déby in early 2008. In fact, the more aggressively the international community pursues war crimes trials and Western advocacy groups demand justice in Darfur, the more aggressively the NCP is likely to resist the UN-AU peacekeeping force there, even after it is fully deployed.

Part of the reason the NCP has been able to resist international pressure so far is that Sudan’s oil revenues are rising. The money allows the party to buy off opponents at home, guarantees a national growth rate of 12-14 percent a year, helps maintain prosperity in the Arab triangle, and supports a massive internal security apparatus. It also insulates the NCP from outside pressure. It has blunted, for example, the effects of the U.S. economic sanctions regime that the Clinton administration put in place in 1997 and that President Bush expanded and extended last year. These measures have hurt Sudan’s banking and financial system enough that the Sudanese business community is pressing Khartoum to normalize relations with the outside world. But the pressure has been insufficient to force a major policy shift; the sanctions are disruptive but do not threaten the NCP’s survival. Tightening them further is not an option: shutting off Sudan’s oil exports altogether would deprive the south of revenues on which its survival and stability depend. Senior southern leaders have told me, moreover, that they would view any move by Khartoum to cut off oil revenues to the south as an act of war.

HARDBALL

Another source of instability is the hard-line tactics that the SPLM recently adopted toward the northern Arabs, largely out of frustration over the failure of international diplomacy and outside pressure to get Khartoum to implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Last fall, southern leaders withdrew from the national government just before peace talks were to take place between Khartoum and the Darfur rebels in Sirte, Libya. The move was intended to put pressure on the NCP: just as the party was hoping to reach a negotiated resolution to the Darfur crisis, the south’s leaders belied its claim that it was representing a united national government. As one senior European diplomat told me, “The NCP is not accustomed to having the southerners play hardball, and that is exactly what they are doing.”

The NCP’s worst nightmare is now unfolding. Many of the party’s adversaries, traditional and new, on the periphery of the country are now coalescing around the SPLM. During and just after the Sirte peace talks, the southerners undertook a major effort to unite Darfur’s 27 rebel groups. The goal was not simply to facilitate the Darfur peace process, which was paralyzed by infighting among the rebels, but also to create a political and military alliance among all the marginalized groups that oppose the NCP. The SPLM even brought to Juba Sheik Musa Hilal, the notorious organizer and commander of the Janjaweed militias, who is reportedly facing potential indictment for war crimes. Hilal had grown disillusioned with NCP leaders for getting his tribe to do their dirty work and because he believed they would turn him over to the International Criminal Court to save themselves. (The NCP’s panicked response to the southerners’ overture was to offer Hilal a senior position in the national government; he accepted.) An anti-NCP alliance has been forming for some time at the country’s colleges and universities, traditional bellwethers of political opinion.

The power shift between the north and the south is also evident in the evolution of the two sides’ relative military strength. Unlike the totalitarian dictatorships of Kim Jong Il in North Korea and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the NCP does not have an absolute monopoly on the use of violence at home. The SPLM’s sizable army has had more than two decades of guerrilla experience. By the mid-1990s, it was regularly defeating conventional Sudanese government military units, and by 2001 it was threatening Khartoum’s control over key oil fields. Western intelligence has consistently underestimated the force’s capability and overestimated the importance of international pressure on the NCP’s decision to start negotiating an end to the north-south conflict in 2002. In fact, Khartoum was simply losing: the conflict was draining the central government’s coffers, and southern rebels were endangering the oil fields; the annual costs of the war reportedly exceeded the value of the oil revenues that the north now sends to the south each year. The NCP calculated that signing the peace agreement would increase the chances of its own survival.

Since then, three factors have seriously weakened the NCP and its armed forces. First, more than a thousand officers who had been trained in the West or displayed strong leadership skills were forced into early retirement in 2005 and 2006 because they were seen as the group most likely to lead a coup against the NCP. The move not only purged the military of potential traitors; it stripped it of its best senior commanders. Second, tens of thousands of enlisted men who came from Darfur and refused to fight their fellow Darfuris were also removed and have been replaced with the terrifying but ill-trained Janjaweed cavalry. Third, repeated defeats on the battlefield have thoroughly demoralized the troops. In August 2006, Bashir ordered a major military offensive in the hope of defeating the Darfur rebels once and for all, even though his generals had strongly advised against it. It turned into a major embarrassment: in every battle, Khartoum’s army was roundly defeated. The central government’s modest air force still has a monopoly on airpower, and the north’s armored units are much stronger than those of the southern force. But if Napoleon was right in saying that three-quarters of military power is morale, Khartoum now has limited power. According to Human Rights Watch and Jane’s Defense Quarterly, the NCP has tried to make up for in new technology what it lacks in personnel, purchasing billions of dollars’ worth of new weapons systems from China, Iran, and states in the former Soviet bloc. This is a strategy of desperation, for these weapons are unlikely to give the north the military edge it wants — especially not over the SPLM’s army, which is far more motivated and which, thanks to U.S. government assistance, is increasingly becoming capable of defending its territory.

The NCP has other reasons to feel vulnerable. The Nile River Arabs, who represent about five percent of the country’s population, fear that even the Arab triangle is at risk of being overtaken by the southerners who migrated to the north during the civil war. Judging by the people walking the streets of Khartoum in 1989, the year of my first visit, the city was Arab; now it seems pronouncedly African. President Bashir has remarked privately that he may end up being the last Arab president of Sudan. Even Arabs who oppose the regime say they are uneasy about their future. About 1.6 million of the southerners displaced by the civil war have returned home, but another two million have opted to stay in the north, even with the Arabs pressuring them to leave and the southern government urging them to return home. Now, the streets of Khartoum are pervaded by a combination of fear and anger — fear of what might happen if war resumes and anger over alleged intrigues and broken commitments. When Garang died in a helicopter accident in July 2005, many southern migrants in Khartoum rioted, killing Arabs and burning and looting their businesses, because they believed he had been assassinated. Arabs still talk about these incidents, and NCP leaders are terrified. The government regularly conducts house-to-house searches for weapons. During the early stages of the Darfur crisis, the NCP circulated stories alleging that a conspiracy was brewing in Khartoum among university students from one of the rebelling Darfur tribes. It rounded up the suspects for interrogation, and they have since disappeared into the Sudanese prison system. Some senior NCP leaders now refer to the southerners as a cancer on the country and say they would welcome the south’s secession. Such a sentiment was inconceivable a year ago, when the NCP’s unrelenting refrain was that Western powers were doing too little to encourage the country’s unity.

The situation is volatile. Hard-liners in the south may be tempted to provoke a confrontation with the north based on the belief that their transformed army can dominate the battlefield. Some of them are now resisting a compromise on Abyei and making maximalist demands. Meanwhile, the NCP, which feels that the north is increasingly vulnerable to an invasion by southern forces, has been mobilizing the Arab militias that committed atrocities against southerners during the civil war. It has also been trying to exacerbate divisions within the south — between the doves and the hawks in the SPLM, between the dominant Dinkas and smaller tribes, between people with privileged access to jobs and power in Juba and people who suffer the effects of poverty, widespread corruption, and inadequate public services. Because of the north’s declining military preparedness, growing opposition to the NCP on its own turf, and fear among the party’s leaders that they are losing control, the Nile River Arabs have developed a siege mentality, which will complicate any attempt to solve Sudan’s crisis.

THE WRONG WAY

If the north continues to obstruct the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the south will surely go to war. And if the fighting resumes, Khartoum will not be able to confine the conflict geographically, as it has in the past: with a new locus of political and military power in Juba supported by a large army, the war would come to Khartoum very quickly, likely causing large casualties on both sides and potentially widespread retributive violence.

Sudan’s collapse would mean far more than a massive humanitarian emergency; it would also mean a security and economic disaster. Disintegration could destabilize Sudan’s nine neighbors — including oil-rich Chad and Libya and the United States’ allies Egypt and Ethiopia — by sending masses of refugees beyond its borders and drawing in dangerous groups. Bin Laden was based in Sudan in the early 1990s, and in 2007 al Qaeda threatened to send holy warriors to fight any UN peacekeepers that might be deployed to Darfur. The economic consequences of Sudan’s collapse would also be serious. Sudanese oil currently represents a modest but rising share of the world’s total supply; some oil engineers claim that Sudan may have the largest unexplored reserves in the world. If shipments to China, India, Malaysia, and Sudan’s other major clients were precipitously halted, these countries would seek oil elsewhere, forcing up world prices of crude, as well as the cost of gasoline to Americans.

Given the stakes, the U.S. government’s overarching strategic objective in Sudan should be to slow down the forces of dissolution before it is too late. So far, the United States’ Sudan policy has been hampered by its alternating between an ideological crusade to rid Sudan of the reviled NCP and a pragmatic approach that promotes gradual reform. Washington pursued regime change in the 1990s, confronting and seeking to isolate Khartoum; pragmatism drove the more recent negotiations that yielded the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

The approach emphasizing regime change has posed several problems. Severe pressure from Washington — economic sanctions, being tagged a state sponsor of terrorism, and diplomatic downgrading — did force Khartoum to expel bin Laden in the mid-1990s. But considering that the NCP is still in power today, it is clear that the policy has been a failure overall. The U.S. government is not very good at forcing regime change anywhere. And in Sudan, which is substantially bigger and more complex than Afghanistan or Iraq, the task is particularly difficult. Regime change cannot address the major challenge that Garang often mentioned to me, namely how to “de-NCPify” Sudan after the NCP government is removed. Garang believed that if his movement ever assumed power, its central problem would be dealing with the one to two million Sudanese who together have been controlling all levels of the state for two decades. The NCP rules not simply through its governing council but also through an extensive party organization, the national civil service (which NCP operatives have taken over from career officers), hundreds of thousands of agents and informants in the security and intelligence apparatuses, and a growing industrial complex.

The NCP infrastructure is massive, complex, and ruthless. It will not simply disappear; it has no place to go. Judging by the recent histories of the Balkan states, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Iraq, and the former Soviet republics, Sudan’s old order will not leave quietly if it is offered no way out. If the NCP is forcibly deposed, it will likely reconstitute itself underground in the form of tribal militias and criminal mafias. Unless the interests of the Nile River Arabs are represented in a coalition government or protected by some constitutional arrangement, whatever is left of the party will try to infiltrate and destabilize the new regime. Several powerful NCP leaders have threatened in private to make the country ungovernable if they are forced out of office. Because of the tribal hatreds that the party has nurtured and manipulated over the years, retributive violence could break out on a grand scale. Everyone would be at risk, particularly in greater Khartoum.

This is but one reason why the West’s strategy of confrontation, which I once supported, has not produced — and cannot produce — a solution to either Darfur’s crisis or Sudan’s. U.S. advocates and government officials once hoped that pressure could dislodge the NCP. It now seems clear that promoting regime change unintentionally reinforced the regime’s intransigence and encouraged more violence. Careful and dispassionate observation of the NCP’s behavior suggests that the party becomes more irresponsible and brutal when it feels threatened, from within Sudan or by the international community. As Western pressure on Khartoum has grown over the past few years, the NCP has established formal ties to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime in Iran and Hugo Chávez’s in Venezuela. Last year, the U.S. Congress passed a divestiture statute protecting U.S. state governments, municipalities, universities, and companies from shareholder lawsuits if, on political grounds, they choose to sell the stocks they hold in companies that do business in Sudan. Within a month, the Sudanese government tried to overthrow the Chadian government through proxies, massively bombed civilian targets in Darfur after a rebel offensive, and launched a ground attack on UN peacekeeping troops.

SAVE SUDAN

Engagement is now the only policy that has any chance of success. With experience showing that the NCP can resist outside pressure thanks to Sudan’s growing oil wealth, an approach offering rewards for compliance and cooperation is more likely to work than one based on punishing recalcitrance. Washington should offer Khartoum the chance to normalize U.S.-Sudanese relations incrementally if it takes tangible steps to settle the Darfur crisis and implement the transformational provisions of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The NCP is particularly interested in being removed from Washington’s list of terrorist sponsors. This change in status could mean the lifting of sanctions as well as new access to U.S. technology for oil refining — and a chance for Khartoum to increase its oil revenues by as much as 40 percent, according to oil industry experts. The Bush administration is now trying to adopt a more pragmatic approach that would allow such measures, but opposition in Congress and among the Darfur advocacy movement might make that impossible. This would be unfortunate, because much good has come from engagement with Khartoum in the past: it produced the Comprehensive Peace Agreement — the Bashir government’s only forward-looking accomplishment to date.

Washington should spearhead efforts to ensure the full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, while following the UN’s and the AU’s lead in trying to secure a negotiated peace in Darfur and in getting it enforced by UN-AU peacekeepers. Darfur cannot be saved if Sudan is not, and saving Sudan depends, more than anything else, on the Comprehensive Peace Agreement’s implementation. Preparations for the national elections are moving at a tortoise’s pace because the NCP knows its chances of winning are negligible. Many Sudanese fear that the party will try to invoke the insecurity in Darfur as an excuse to cancel the contest. That would be disastrous, because if Khartoum refuses to hold the elections, steals them by rigging the process, or blocks the 2011 referendum on the south’s secession, war will most certainly break out. The best way to convince the NCP to drop its obstructionist tactics is to offer it more positive incentives and fewer negative ones. The NCP is more likely to allow the general elections (and accept the presence of international peacekeepers in Darfur) if its leaders no longer fear that their clique will face retribution if the party loses or that they might be tried for war crimes before the International Criminal Court. Washington has agreed to cooperate with the court (whose creation it opposed) under pressure from domestic constituencies calling for the NCP to be punished for the 2003-4 atrocities in Darfur. But threatening to hold the trials is jeopardizing the chances for peace. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement says not one word about prosecuting war crimes or compensating the victims of atrocities for just this reason: back in 2003, during the peace negotiations, Garang wisely realized that if he demanded justice, the north-south war would not end (he also knew the southerners had committed their share of atrocities). Instead of war crimes trials, the South African model of a truth and reconciliation commission might be considered.

Engaging Khartoum would also directly serve the north-south peace process. Washington alone cannot save Sudan — only the Sudanese can do that — but it can support those forces, in the north and in the south, that seek a nonviolent, incremental path toward long-term peace. U.S. policy should continue to focus on preventing a return to war while developing formulas for wealth sharing in all parts of the country and a compromise on the status of Abyei. This last element is essential, because if war ignites Sudan, Abyei will likely have been the spark. (China and Saudi Arabia, whose leaders Khartoum respects, could help, much as they helped convince President Bashir to support the deployment of UN troops to Darfur.) In a similar spirit, Washington should press the UN, the NCP, the SPLM, and Sudan’s traditional political parties to plan now for the aftermath of the 2011 referendum, in case the southerners decide to secede, as seems likely.

The Bush administration should also continue to develop its incremental road map for improving U.S. relations with Sudan — something NCP leaders have repeatedly told me they want — in exchange for a political settlement in Darfur and for Khartoum’s implementation of the most transformational provisions of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. A tangible improvement in relations might convince President Bashir to turn away from the NCP’s hard-liners and toward its moderates and oversee a nonviolent transition to a pluralist democracy or at least a more inclusive society. (Washington successfully used a similar approach with South Africa in the early 1990s and Burundi at the turn of the century.) The NCP’s leaders are worried that U.S. policy might change to their disadvantage under the next U.S. president and that they have only until the end of 2008 to improve relations with Washington — a point that I have reinforced in all of my conversations with them. Unfortunately, rapprochement may face substantial resistance in the United States because the erroneous impression that tens of thousands of civilians continue to be slaughtered in Darfur is driving both a confrontational advocacy campaign and aggressive congressional action. But I believe it is the only approach that can save Sudan.

Engaging Khartoum would also mean abandoning the tempting but foolhardy option of military intervention, except under extreme circumstances. No Western government, not even the United States (regardless of who is its next president), is likely to invade Sudan or blockade its port on the Red Sea, because either move would constitute an act of war and involve high military risks. In any case, the use of U.S. airpower against Sudan would be justified, ethically or politically, in only two instances: if the Sudanese armed forces launched an unprovoked attack against the south or if Khartoum tried to violently shut down the refugee camps in Darfur and massacre or forcibly return people to their homes. Any U.S. military action would endanger the humanitarian aid effort that is keeping more than two million persons displaced from Darfur alive. Meanwhile, the number of deaths in Darfur has dropped dramatically since 2003-4, and last year more than half of them were among Arab tribes fighting over Africans’ land. No civilian life is expendable, of course, but the current losses hardly justify the potential humanitarian consequences of military intervention. The time for military action has passed; if there was one, it was during the massive atrocities of 2003 and 2004, when 96 percent of all the deaths in Darfur from the recent conflict occurred. Khartoum has effectively lost control of the region and is unlikely to regain it anytime soon. And although many southerners believe an attack from the north is imminent, I think it is unlikely given the NCP’s current military weakness.

In light of the NCP’s tendency to protect itself at all cost and the limited effectiveness of international diplomacy so far, internal pressure may be an important way to secure the NCP’s cooperation. Washington should therefore increase its support for the SPLM and help the south develop a credible conventional military force, an initiative President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice instructed me to organize, and treat as a priority, in 2006-7. The southerners’ brinkmanship nearly caused a war last fall, but it did temporarily get Khartoum to respond to their demands. While being careful not to embolden the SPLM too much, Washington should further empower it in order to both deter potential aggression from Khartoum and press the NCP to reform. This would mean reducing the southern force’s considerable size (currently a major drain on Juba’s budget), subordinating the force to civilian authority, ensuring that its main purpose is defensive, providing it with tactical training, strengthening its command and control to reduce the risk of an accidental war, and tightening discipline within it overall. The U.S. government should not provide the southerners with weapons systems they could use for offensive purposes — hard-liners might use them to provoke Khartoum — but it should immediately help the south develop an air defense system to serve as a deterrent against an air attack from the north. Building a much stronger southern Sudan — militarily, politically, and economically — is the best insurance policy against the north’s efforts to block reforms or destabilize the south. The $167 million appropriated by the U.S. Congress in fiscal year 2007 for the reconstruction of southern Sudan is insufficient to create a visible peace dividend; more funds are needed. Last year, when I was special envoy to Sudan, my office requested $600 million for a reconstruction program to be overseen by the U.S. Agency for International Development but only received $120 million. The remainder should be appropriated now.

Although U.S. policymakers must never forget what happened in Darfur in 2003-4, those who focus on the region’s past run the risk of compromising the entire country’s future. During the critically important year ahead, Washington should pursue a prudent and nuanced but aggressive policy of engagement — this is both good policy and the right thing to do. Washington should also remember, however, that even good policy does not always succeed. The NCP may be too paranoid and obstructionist, the SPLM too suspicious of Khartoum, and Washington’s leverage too limited for even enlightened measures to stem Sudan’s dissolution. But given the terrible potential for a humanitarian catastrophe, the strategic consequences that would come from Sudan’s collapse, and the likely costs of reconstruction, Washington has no option but to try.

KHARTOUM – An unprecedented Darfur rebel attack on Khartoum is a turning point that could persuade Sudan’s rulers to negotiate seriously with their foes or push Africa’s biggest country towards disintegration.

Sudan-watchers believe the key is international involvement and say much more pressure is needed on both rebels and the government to end the vicious war in Darfur and prevent it threatening the very survival of the state.

“The government of Khartoum may be under more pressure now to take negotiations seriously … but that will depend on the pressure on the government from the international community,” said Jan Pronk, former U.N. envoy to Sudan.

“The international community dropped the ball,” he said, suggesting more effort to get the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebels to join Darfur peace talks could have prevented the attack.

For the first time in decades of conflict between Arab-dominated Khartoum and rebels from Sudan’s distant corners, the fight has come to the government’s back yard.

Residents of Khartoum got a small taste of daily life in Sudan’s regional conflict zones, hiding in their homes dodging heavy mortar and rifle fire. The rebels were pushed back late on Saturday but have vowed to attack again.

Observers say it is still early to tell whether the attack will prompt hardliners in the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) to try for an all-out military solution, paid for with surging oil revenues.

Some believe that by exposing the vulnerability of the stronghold of Khartoum, the assault could actually make peace negotiations seem a better option and encourage the party to reconcile with political rivals.

“This does show a little bit of a wake up call and opens space to debate that was previously closed because the NCP in Khartoum appeared untouchable,” said Dave Mozersky from the International Crisis Group think tank.

Other political parties have had somewhat surly relations with the NCP, accusing it of dragging its feet on democratic transformation.

A 2005 north-south peace deal, which did not cover Darfur, envisaged Sudan’s first democratic elections in 23 years due in 2009 and gave the largely Christian and animist southerners a chance to secede in 2011.

But the ruling party has stalled on key parts of the deal which would directly affect its control over security and vital oil revenues from the around half a million barrels per day Sudan produces.

South Sudan’s military force of former rebels is far more potent than the Darfuri fighters, as it tellingly made clear at the weekend with its offer to send soldiers to help Khartoum.

Whatever the possibility that the rebel attack could eventually strengthen the chances of dialogue, analysts said the immediate reaction from Sudan’s rulers was likely to be a security crackdown to save face.

“This is very significant and it’s a profound embarrassment that they could get to the city and right in Omdurman using these military tactics,” U.S.-based Sudan expert Alex De Waal said.

“If the government wants a pretext for a huge crackdown this is it.”

CRACKDOWN

Opposition Popular Congress Party leader Hassan al-Turabi, linked in the past to the JEM rebels who have a similar Islamist agenda, was arrested early on Monday. Human rights lawyers said Darfuris were being rounded up in the capital.

The army could step up an assault on the JEM rebels in Darfur, as it had been doing before the attack.

But the fighting in Khartoum has itself shown up the army’s failure to bring a military end to the conflict which international experts reckon has left 200,000 people dead since largely Muslim, but non-Arab Darfuris took up arms in 2003.

Chad might also be a target. Khartoum has cut diplomatic ties, accusing its neighbour of backing the rebels. Chad denies that and in turn says Sudan was behind a Chadian rebel attempt to oust President Idriss Deby in February.

Vital for calming those regional tensions as well as holding Sudan together is bringing peace to Darfur.

But the process has barely moved in the two years since a flawed deal signed by only one of three negotiating rebel factions.

Many observers blame the United Nations and African Union team who are leading the mediation between the government and increasingly fractured rebel factions.

The arrival of peacekeepers has also been at a snail’s pace. While Western countries accuse Sudan of foot-dragging on terms for deployment, the necessary troops, equipment and funds have not been forthcoming.

“Facts on the ground continue to deteriorate faster than the anaemic diplomacy of the international community, said Amjad Atallah from the activist Save Darfur Coalition. “That must change.”

NAIROBI, Kenya — The day after the Sudanese government quickly dispensed with an attack by Darfurian rebels on the capital, Khartoum, the question that many people are asking is, “What were the rebels thinking?”

In several years of fighting, the rebels have largely confined their attacks to government positions in Darfur, never once attempting an assault on the capital.

And with good reason.

Khartoum is heavily fortified, with bunkers at the airport and .50-caliber machine guns on the streets. It has been spared the messy conflicts that have been raging in Sudan’s hinterlands because the central government, dominated by a tight cadre of Arab military men with a history of support for Islamic militants, has used oil profits and Chinese weapons to build a formidable defense force.

Beyond the fact that the rebels, part of the Justice and Equality Movement, also known as JEM, tried to attack at all, the most surprising aspect of the attack was how far they got. After steaming across the desert in a phalanx of battered pickup trucks on Saturday, they came within a few miles of Khartoum.

“What was JEM trying to do?” asked David Mozersky, a Sudan analyst for International Crisis Group, a research institute that follows conflict zones throughout the world. “It’s hard to imagine they thought they could capture the capital with 50 to 100 cars.”

John Prendergast, a founder of the Enough Project, which campaigns against genocide, said he thinks the attack was a ploy to gain leverage. The rebels wanted “to slap” the governing National Congress Party, he said, “then cut a power sharing deal with the ruling party, without the other Darfur factions.”

“We’re seeing in part a continuation of the internal battle between Islamist factions,” he said, referring to the fact that both the Darfurian rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement and Sudanese government officials, though sworn enemies, share an Islamist agenda.

If the attack were meant to send a signal, it was one that cost dozens of lives, according to residents of Khartoum’s suburbs, who saw bodies of rebel fighters still sprawled out in the streets on Sunday morning.

Sudan has long been a hornets’ nest of bitter, warring factions. To begin with, the government is an awkward fusion of two warring parties, the National Congress Party and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement. These two sides fought a civil war for more than 20 years in southern Sudan that killed an estimated 2.2 million people, almost 10 times as many as in Darfur.

After a landmark peace deal in 2005 that the Bush administration helped broker, the National Congress Party became the senior partner, but the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement , which represents the Christian and animist south, won some powerful posts, like the foreign ministry and first vice presidency; it also commands its own military.

Layer on top of this divide more than 20 heavily armed Darfurian rebel groups, some who have negotiated with the government, some who continue to fight it and some who have recently been fighting with each other. Then add the rebel outfits in the north, east and south of the country, and it’s easy to appreciate how the attack on Saturday, however quixotic, could have lit the fuse under many of Sudan’s simmering tensions.

The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and the Darfurian rebels share many of the same objectives, like addressing the historic marginalization of Sudan’s hinterlands. In many ways, the discontented southerners and the discontented Darfurians seem like natural partners.

But on Sunday, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement leadership made clear whose side it was on.

Salva Kiir Mayardit, the president of South Sudan and the first vice president of the national unity government, condemned the attack, saying it would not help resolve the Darfur crisis.

His military commanders issued a statement saying that they were ready to back up the national government.

Besides not helping the Darfurian fighters, the attack could end up undermining them. Not only did it seem to bring the National Congress Party and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement closer, it may have cost them popular support.

“I am Darfurian,” said Ishag Adam Bashir, a member of Parliament aligned with the unity government. “I know what’s going on out there. People in Darfur are suffering. Attacking Khartoum isn’t going to help them.”

Mr. Ishag said the attack showed the Justice and Equality Movement’s true colors.

“Clearly, JEM isn’t interested in Darfur anymore,” he said. “They are using Darfur as a way to challenge the government here, but they have nothing to do with Darfur issues.”

Leaders of the Justice and Equality Movement have said they attacked Khartoum as a way to bring their battle directly to the government.

There is no doubt that there will be some sort of government crackdown. It seems to have already started. Residents said that roadblocks had popped up all across Khartoum on Sunday, with soldiers boarding buses, checking identity cards and escorting male Darfurians into jail cells.

The rebels who were not arrested or killed seemed to have disappeared, either having melded into the capital population or returning to Darfur.

There were also reports, including by an American official in the region, that mid-level Sudanese Army officers had been arrested for helping the rebels, which could signify a split in the security services.

The Sudanese government had its own theory about the attack, which bore an uncanny resemblance to a recent strike on Sudan’s equally troubled neighbor, Chad. In February, Chadian rebels who had been using Sudan as a base nearly overran the presidential palace in Ndjamena, Chad’s capital. And it was fighters from the Justice and Equality Movement, which has close ties to Chad, who helped protect the palace.

So it was no surprise that the first thing the Sudanese government did on Sunday was to break off relations with Chad, which Sudanese officials accused of backing the rebels and trying to pull off a coup. “The return favor was bigger than expected,” Mr. Prendergast said.

OSLO — An international donor conference for Sudan concluded in Oslo on Wednesday with pledges of 4.8 billion dollars (3.1 billion euros) for humanitarian and reconstruction aid in the war-ravaged country.

“The pledges … stand at 4.8 billion dollars,” World Bank director of Strategies and Operations Hartwig Schafer said as the conference wrapped up.

In a report published ahead of the conference, the Sudanese government and the regional government of semi-autonomous South Sudan said they needed around 6.1 billion dollars of international aid through 2011.

The time frame and how the donated funds would be split between humanitarian, reconstruction and developmental aid efforts remained unclear.

The three-day meeting, gathering representatives from 30 countries and international organisations, sought to determine what progress has been made since the signing of a January 2005 peace accord between Sudan’s government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).

The 2005 peace accord ended a devastating civil war in Sudan’s largely animist and Christian southern region, which raged over 21 years killing 1.5 million people.

“The pledging commitments that have been made so far really deserve (our) whole-hearted appreciation and applause,” said Ali Osman Taha, the vice president of the National Unity government in Khartoum.

“You have proven that you are real friends,” he added.

When announcing their pledges, many donors stressed the importance of pushing forward with the practical implementation of the peace accord as well as making progress to resolve the conflict in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, ravaged by a separate civil war.

Donations this time around surpassed the pledges made at an initial donor conference for Sudan held in Oslo in April 2005 when 4.5 billion dollars over a three-year period were raised.

“Even one dollar is immense and quite appreciated” by the people, said Luka Biong Deng, the South Sudan minister of presidential affairs.

In addition to funding the disarming of fighters and their reintegration into civilian life, the pledged money would go towards improving infrastructure, education and basic healthcare, he said.

It would also help improve access to water, sanitation and would boost agriculture, he added.

“These are the things that will make peace meaningful to the people of war-affected areas,” he told AFP.

The Oslo conference came half-way through the 2005-2011 transition period outlined in the 2005 peace accord. Sudan is then to hold a referendum on whether southern Sudan can secede.

KHARTOUM – Days after the UN and African Union condemned as unacceptable the bombings of villages and markets in Darfur by Sudanese government planes, at least 13 people were reported killed in an attack on a primary school and market in North Darfur state.

The 3-4 May bombing of the school in Shegeg Karo by Antonov planes occurred while classes were in session, according to a statement from Darfur Diaries, an NGO that funds the educational centre.

Gen Martin Luther Agwai, commander of the UN-AU force in Darfur (UNAMID), on 2 May condemned bombings in Umm Sidir, Ein Bassar and Shegeg Karo. The attacks, he said, had compounded the extent of displacement, insecurity and untold human suffering.

The UN said the targeted areas were controlled by the Sudan Liberation Army, which have witnessed “repeated aerial attacks and possible fighting between government and rebel forces during the course of the last few days”.

The latest violence casts doubt on the viability of the Darfur Peace Agreement, signed two years ago after the final round of negotiations between rebel factions and the Sudanese government.

The DPA provides for disarmament and a framework for wealth- and power-sharing. It awarded rebel signatories the fourth-highest office in government and created buffer zones around internally displaced persons and humanitarian assistance corridors.

At the last minute, however, only one of the three rebel groups then in existence signed the Abuja accord.

“[The DPA] did not make any positive difference in terms of peace and stability and security in the Darfur region, and many would argue that in some ways the DPA made things worse,” Laurie Nathan, a member of the AU mediation team in Abuja, Nigeria, told IRIN.

“Among other things, [the DPA] led to a fragmentation of the rebel movements,” he said, referring to the fracturing of the three main groups into more than 28 separate factions, all vying for the status of negotiating partner.

Nathan also said the failure of the DPA “made some of the rebel groups mistrustful of peace negotiations”.

Shuttle diplomacy

In an effort to revitalise the peace process, the UN and AU appointed Jan Eliasson and Salim Ahmed Salim as special envoys in December 2006. However, the rebels have yet to come to the negotiating table – only seven groups attended the latest negotiations in Sirte, Libya, in October 2007.

“There is no question that [the current mediation team] have understood the great and terrible need for patience; that simply writing an agreement for the parties, when the parties are not committed to the agreement, will get us absolutely nowhere,” said Nathan.

Sources from the negotiating team said both Eliasson and Salim were engaging in shuttle diplomacy to break the mistrust among rebel groups.

Theodore Murphy, a Darfur expert at the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue mediation group, told IRIN that “in some sense, this is a step backwards, but it is a step forward in that it can break down the barriers between the groups right now”.

After this is accomplished, he said, “they might accept to sit and talk with one another”.

Civil society and Arab groups, who were largely ignored during the first peace process, have been incorporated into current negotiations to encourage wider involvement in the process.

“This sector of Darfurians has no other option but to fight for its rights peacefully,” Hasan Isan Hasan, who represented civil society at the Sirte negotiations, said. “The people of Darfur support the negotiations and will continue to, just because … there is no other way for sustainable peace.

Role of UNAMID

The status of the DPA, however, remains unclear. While rebel groups have continued to reject it, the government maintains any future negotiations should be built within the framework of the original agreement.

Abdel Wahid Mohammed al-Nur, the influential exiled leader of the Sudanese Liberation Movement/Abdel Wahid, refused to take part in the latest negotiations in Sirte. He cited insecurity in Darfur and lack of complete deployment of the hybrid peacekeeping operation for the boycott.

UNAMID took over operations from the AU peacekeeping force on 1 January and will have a projected strength of 26,000 personnel.

According to Rodolphe Adada, the UN-AU Joint Special Representative for Darfur, current deployment of UNAMID stands at only 40 percent, and the force is unlikely to be fully deployed until 2009.

It has been delayed by lack of logistics, including transport and attack helicopters, and disagreements with the government over the composition of the force.

“UNAMID is a peacekeeping mission,” Adada said, “and peacekeepers need a peace to keep.”

Earlier, Ahmed Salim had said: “If UNAMID can be in a position to be fully deployed, be properly equipped and be able to function with the cooperation of the parties, it will have a major effect in finding a negotiable solution to the crisis.”

Echoing similar sentiments, Eliasson added: “There is a very concrete function to increased UNAMID presence in Darfur, and that is the monitoring and verification of the cessation of hostilities agreement that we hope will be part of the beginning of the talks.”

JUBA, Sudan — The bodies of south Sudan Defence Minister Dominic Dim Deng and five others killed in a plane crash arrived in Juba on Saturday, where hundreds of weeping relatives and top officials had been waiting.

South Sudan Defence Minister Dominic Dim Deng’s plane went down on Friday, 375 kilometres (around 220 miles) from Juba, killing everyone on board, including many army officers.

South Sudan’s president and the country’s first vice president, Salva Kiir, was among those waiting at the airport, where the defence minister’s coffin was given a military salute.

The plane that crashed had been rented from a charter company and was carrying a delegation of leaders of the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement from Wau to the capital Juba, 450 kilometres (290 miles) to the southeast.

The bodies accompanying that of Deng on UN helicopters were those of his wife and member of the Southern Sudan Employee Justice Chamber Josephine Jenaro Aken, Presidential Advisor Justin Yac and his wife and two Kenyan pilots, officials said.

Other bodies were being taken to their ancestral homes, officials said.

Rescue teams were still searching the scene of the plane crash for two missing bodies, an official said.

“The wreckage was bad. It takes time to open it up completely,” Lakes State Governor Daniel Awet said.

He said the first signal from the pilot was sent when the plane was some 17 miles (27 kilometres) out of Rumbek, the provincial capital of Lakes State, north of Juba, and the second signal came when the plane was 27 miles (43 kilometres) away.

“This incident confirms no evil intent behind the accident,” South Sudan Army Chief of Staff Deng Oyay said. “But more investigations would be carried out. As we learned from the communication from the pilot this tragedy is a result of mechanical conditions.”

Earlier Saturday, Sudanese Foreign Minister Deng Alor told AFP that Kiir would skip a donors conference in Oslo next week to attend the funerals of his defence minister and 22 others.

Kiir had been due to attend a May 6-7 conference aimed at generating pledges of support for the further reconstruction and development of southern Sudan, Alor said, adding that the date and location of the funerals has not been set.

“It could be in Juba (the capital of south Sudan) or in Warab” to the north, Alor said.

One SPLM leader, Hamid Ghallab, told reporters on Saturday that the SPLM’s general congress will proceed as scheduled on May 10 in Juba, allowing for the election of a successor to the defence minister.

An official three-day mourning period for the victims of the crash began on Saturday in south Sudan, officials said.

N’DJAMENA – Gunmen in eastern Chad killed a French aid worker with Save The Children UK on Thursday after halting the convoy of vehicles in which he was travelling near the Sudan border, the British charity said.

Pascal Marlinge, 49, was one of a group of aid workers moving in a three-car convoy between the villages of Forchana and Hadjer Hadid in Chad’s eastern borderlands, where several hundred thousand refugees are sheltering in U.N.-run camps.

Hijacking of aid vehicles is common in east Chad, which has been racked by violence in recent years that has included rebel offensives, inter-ethnic clashes and attacks by raiders coming over the border from Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region.

But killings of foreign humanitarian workers, several hundred of whom work in Chad, are rare.

“Our information is that at about 10.15 am local time the convoy was stopped by a group of armed men. A shot, or shots, were fired and Mr Marlinge was killed. The four other humanitarian workers were unhurt,” Save The Children UK said.

“All Save the Children UK work in Chad has been suspended until further notice,” it added in a statement. Marlinge had a wife and teenage daughter living in France, it said.

France, which has troops stationed in Chad and has helped Chadian President Idriss Deby beat back offensives from the east by anti-government rebels, denounced the killing as barbaric.

“I have been informed that Pascal Marlinge, a French citizen working for a humanitarian organisation, has been savagely killed while working for displaced people and refugees in the area of Forchana, in eastern Chad,” French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in a statement.

“This is an act of base barbarism,” Kouchner said.

The identity of Marlinge’s killers was not immediately known, nor why he was shot.

VEHICLE HIJACKINGS

A U.N. source in east Chad, who asked not to be named, said the convoy including the Save The Children vehicle was travelling without a Chadian military escort.

“The information I have is that they were stopped by two armed men who made them get out of their vehicles and took the car keys. They were standing with their hands up when one of the gunmen went up to Pascal and shot him in the head,” the source told Reuters.

The body of the slain aid worker was being flown by helicopter to the eastern town of Abeche, from where it would be flown by plane to the capital N’Djamena.

Dozens of vehicles used by foreign humanitarian groups have been hijacked in eastern Chad over the last two years.

In May 2006, a Spanish woman working for the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) was shot and wounded in Abeche by an armed man who stole her U.N. jeep. In June last year, a French aid worker belonging to French medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) was killed by rebels in the north of Central African Republic, which borders Chad to the south.

The European Union (EU) has deployed more than 2,000 troops in eastern Chad and northeast Central African Republic to help protect around half a million Sudanese and Chadian refugees and civilians who are being looked after by foreign aid workers.

UNITED NATIONS: The Security Council voted unanimously Wednesday night to extend the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Sudan and called for demarcation of the contested oil-rich border region between the north and south where recent fighting left dozens dead.

Some 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers are enforcing a 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of civil war between the ethnic African south and Sudan’s Arab-dominated government in the capital Khartoum — but peace remains fragile. It is separate from the conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region.

The disputed region in southern Kordofan province where four days of fighting between south Sudanese troops and Arab tribesman ended Tuesday is claimed by north and south, like the nearby oil rich region of Abyei. Both have become potential flashpoints that could wreck the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

In a report to the Security Council earlier this month, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said recent clashes and tensions in the Abyei area “represent a potential threat to the agreement” and to the national unity government in Khartoum that now includes members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement which led the war in the south.

“I urge the parties to summon the political will to address difficult outstanding issues, particularly the status of Abyei and the disputed Jan. 1, 1956 border,” Ban said. “Further delay in resolving those issues may complicate the situation and lead to unintended conflict.”

In the resolution adopted Wednesday, the Security Council “expresses concern at the persistence of localized conflict and violence, especially in the border area, mostly affecting civilians and with the potential for escalation.”

It calls on all parties to cooperate fully with U.N. peacekeepers in the Abyei region, “without prejudice to the final agreement on the actual borders between the two sides.” It also urges the U.N. mission to consult with the parties and deploy personnel to the Abyei region, including areas of Kordofan, “as approriate.”

The council also called on the parties to redeploy their forces away from the disputed border and find “a mutually agreeable solution to the Abyei issue.”

The resolution requests that the U.N. mission provide technical and logistical support to help the parties demarcate the north-south border, in accordance with the 2005 agreement.

On other issues, the council urged the national unity government to complete the census that began this month and “to prepare expeditiously for the conduct of free and fair elections in all of the Sudan.” It also encouraged the U.N. mission to assist the parties in promoting reconciliation and peacebuilding.

This week marks a grim and largely unnoticed anniversary. On April 27, 2007, International Criminal Court judges issued arrest warrants for two men involved in the massive, ongoing atrocities in the Darfur region of western Sudan: Former state minister of the interior Ahmed Haroun, and Ali Kushayb, a key leader of the brutal Arab militia known as Janjaweed. Both are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Evidence in the ICC cases against both men is overwhelming, including numerous eyewitness accounts from victims as well as compelling documentary evidence. Yet Khartoum refuses to extradite or lift a finger in prosecuting either man.

No surprise there. Were Mr. Haroun and Mr. Kushayb to testify in the Hague, where the ICC is based, the most senior members of the Khartoum regime would be at obvious risk of indictment themselves. Mr. Haroun in particular could point far up the military and civilian chain of command.

In a grotesque irony, Mr. Haroun has even been promoted to the position of state minister for humanitarian affairs, with major responsibility for millions of desperate victims of the very crimes he orchestrated.

More than five years have passed since the Khartoum regime and its Janjaweed allies launched their campaign of destruction against the non-Arab populations of Darfur. The savagery of the attacks upon civilians, the torched villages, mass murders, rapes, abductions and mutilations have made the word Darfur synonymous with human suffering. More than 2.5 million people have fled from their burning homes in terror, seeking tenuous refuge in wretched camps across Darfur and eastern Chad.

The ICC is charged with investigating and prosecuting cases in which the national courts of a country cannot or will not render justice even in the face of the most horrific international crimes. The ICC, however, has no police force of its own, and so relies on others to execute its arrest warrants. In the case of Darfur, the ICC arrest warrants derive from a United Nations Security Council resolution.

Khartoum’s refusal to arrest the suspects should be superseded by the Council’s authority to act in the interests of international peace and security. But Security Council members have shown little interest in pressuring Sudan to comply with the resolution. As long as the Security Council continues in this vein, Mr. Haroun and Mr. Kushayb will operate with complete impunity in Sudan.

Those nations who have committed their support to the ICC must understand that a green light for the likes of such men is also a green light for Khartoum’s defiance of other international demands. The large, U.N.-authorized protection force, for example, has for nine months been obstructed by this regime. If the international community lacks the will to confront Khartoum, the dying in Darfur will continue apace.

Last December, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor for the ICC, issued a devastating report to the Security Council. “We are witnessing a calculated, organized campaign by Sudanese officials to attack individuals and further destroy the social fabric of entire communities,” he declared. “All information points not to chaotic and isolated acts, but to a pattern of attacks.”

The Council failed to provide any support for Mr. Moreno-Ocampo and his terrifying indictment. The ICC must find a way to circumvent Security Council paralysis. International justice will only be served if, in the face of the most egregious international crimes, the nations of the world can place justice before sovereignty.

The United States should take the lead in reforming the Security Council to make it more effective, representative and committed to the ideals of international justice. Darfur is the test case – one year and counting.

Ms. Farrow is an actor and advocate. She has visited the Darfur region eight times. Mr. Reeves is author of “A Long Day’s Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide” (The Key Publishing House, 2007).

JUBA – Almost halfway into Sudan’s crucial national census, security problems, lingering mistrust between Northern and Southern authorities, logistics and heavy rain continue to beset the exercise across states in the South.

While the census commission insisted these challenges would have a minimal impact on the final results, observers and aid workers in Upper Nile and Central Equatoria States said the 22 April to 6 May count was unlikely to achieve complete success.

“Our objective is to cover 100 percent of South Sudan,” Isaiah Chol Aruai, chairman of the Southern Sudan Commission for Census, Statistics and Evaluation, said in the Southern capital of Juba. “We are everywhere; there is no place we have not deployed enumerators.”

Yet the much-delayed census got off to a rocky start. In areas north of Rumbek, counting was delayed by clashes between two communities in Lakes State. At least 100 people were killed, houses burnt and census materials destroyed. A curfew was later imposed.

Security problems were also reported in the oil-rich Abyei region, in the Nuba mountains and in Western Equatoria State. According to the chairman of the Southern census security committee, Brig Peter Wal, the problem was exacerbated because the government in Khartoum did not release money for early deployment of security personnel.

Later, the Southern government stepped in, releasing US$6 million for the census security arrangements.

“It was just a raid and the situation has returned to normal,” Chol told IRIN on 27 April – almost a week after the start of the count. “Security forces were deployed and the enumerators have returned to the area,” he added, downplaying continuing tensions in the state.

Asked if the delay in releasing money for security arrangements had affected preparations, Chol said: “The forces were supposed to be deployed in advance, for them to be on standby. But the money was not available until this week.”

In South Kordofan, deputy state governor Daniel Kodi had called a boycott, citing inadequate resources, the border problems between North and South, the fact that an estimated two million Southerners were still displaced in the North, and the use of questionnaires in Arabic, viewed as the language of the North. Counting eventually began once some of these issues were resolved.

Another source of tension was the Northern government’s apparently unilateral and unannounced deployment of 170 supervisors to all 78 counties in the South. Juba viewed the move as an infringement of its autonomy, and sent the supervisors home. Once back in Khartoum, the supervisors told journalists they had been expelled.

Rain stops play

There have also been complaints of inadequate logistics. Walking in mud thrown up by torrential rains in Malakal town in Upper Nile State, one enumerator told IRIN that few of his colleagues had been provided with suitable transport, a claim backed up by an international monitor in the town, who added, however, that it was “going as well as it could in the circumstances”. At least some counting was going on.

Journalists at the UN-run Radio Miraya also spoke of organisational problems. In Western Equatoria’s Mundri County, for example, one enumerator was covering, on foot, households 20km apart.

Chol insisted preparations had been adequate. “People think all people must be facilitated with cars; that is impossible,” he said. “We have assigned each county a vehicle, motorcycles and bicycles. And we have delivered enough materials – except the Arabic language questionnaires which we received but have retrieved and returned to Khartoum.

“If these logistics are not enough, then the enumerators must be prepared to make a sacrifice … there is nothing more we can do.”

But according to one aid worker in Juba: “Given the problems that the census is facing, including the fact that the rainy season has started, I estimate that they will only cover 60 percent of the work.”

The census was provided for under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended more than two decades of war between South and North Sudan. It is an important step in the preparations for elections in 2009 and a referendum in 2011, when Southern Sudan will decide whether or not to form a separate state.

However, fears among some southern politicians that the census will have a bearing on who is eligible to vote in the referendum are unfounded, according to a well-placed UN official who asked not to be named. But under the terms of the CPA, the results of the census could be used to adjust the distribution of wealth and power between the north and south agreed after lengthy negotiations.

The count is also important for Sudan’s development partners, which expect that it will give them a more precise idea of demographic trends in the country. This is especially important in post-conflict South, where major population displacements occurred during the war.

But the exercise has been dogged by controversy from the beginning – including disagreements over questions of ethnicity and religion, and the presence of many displaced Southerners in the North. There were also issues of timing, with some Southern leaders saying it should be delayed until after the rainy season.

Days before it was due to start, the government of Southern Sudan again called for a boycott. It later changed its mind but insisted it would not be bound by the outcome of the census.

According to the UN Population Fund, which with the UN Mission in Sudan and various other UN agencies, donors and international organisations have supported the count, preliminary results are expected within four to six months.

KHARTOUM — Sudan on Tuesday began its first census in 15 years, a milestone in the peace deal that ended Africa’s longest civil war but overshadowed by disputes that threaten to undermine the fragile accord.

In the 2005 agreement signed by the former warring north and south, the two-week census is crucial to prepare constituencies for national elections and confirm or adjust the wealth and power-sharing ratios in central government.

But the undeveloped south has refused to be bound by the results and rebels in Darfur will boycott the count, both accusing the Arab north of manipulating the census to maximise its control and marginalise the African majority.

The authorities, assisted greatly by the United Nations, said door-to-door counting was smooth and transparent for the most comprehensive census ever held in Sudan, almost constantly engulfed in civil war since independence in 1956.

Rain fell in Khartoum — almost unheard of in April. Shops and businesses were closed, and streets largely deserted with people told to stay indoors.

Heavy rain also fell in the south. One plane of monitors was unable to land overnight in the southern town of Rumbek because of flooding.

“We have some challenges but I think there is a will to overcome these challenges,” said Abdel Bagi Gailani, whom the presidency appointed to head the monitoring and observation committee.

Around 60,000 enumerators dressed in pale blue baseball caps and jackets, monitored by 200 observers, will count the estimated 40 million population, costing Sudan and the international community 103 million dollars.

“Everything is going smoothly. We are not predicting any problems either today or in the coming days,” said Ibrahim Abbas, the head of the census in northern Sudan.

But discontentment and disillusionment run deep in the south, where the legacy of the war that killed two million people and displaced another four million, is keenly felt despite a flood of refugees returning for the count.

As in Khartoum, where many people told AFP they saw no sign of an enumerator, people in major towns across the south complained that by dusk they had not been counted.

“Today is a public holiday, but it doesn’t mean that everybody would be counted the same day,” the head of the census in the south, Isaiah Chol told AFP. “It’s not possible for enumerators to visit each house in the same day.”

But progress was quick at institutions and by mid-afternoon the count was nearly over at the prison in Juba, the capital of the south.

“They finished hours ago,” Machar Machar, a student at Juba University, told AFP. “They came at 4 am. We were still asleep.”

But people remained sceptical.

A radio station reported that people in Upper Nile State, which borders the north, thought the count had been postponed, fuelling rumors of a fresh boycott but the state informed the census commission that enumerators were working.

The southern government said it was unlikely to accept the results after the north insisted the survey go ahead. It was delayed for the fourth time last week when the south complained that ethnicity and religion were not included.

The Arab domination of power in Africa’s largest country was a major reason for the two-decade civil war between north and south, as well as for the separate five-year conflict still raging in the west.

International observers have raised concerns that significant parts of Darfur — a region the size of France — and not just three percent as claimed by Khartoum will be excluded from the count owing to opposition from rebels.

“My people are not there at home… They’re in Chad and concentrated in IDP camps, under trees here and there, in mountains and villages, so what they’re doing is meaningless,” said Khalil Ibrahim, the leader of the Justice and Equality Movement, the strongest rebel group militarily in Darfur, told AFP.

The Egyptian-occupied Halayib triangle in the northeast and remote areas in the south flooded by rains will also be excluded.

The schedule for implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, under which general elections should have been completed by July 2009, is slipping. Under the accord, the census should also have been finalised last year.

The central bureau of statistics expects census results as early as September, but other officials have quoted Christmas as a more realistic date.

It’s bad enough that the international community has failed, five years in, to end the genocide in Darfur, and worse still that it reacted with no urgency when the Darfur crisis bled into neighboring Chad. With the root causes of conflict in each country still untended, this regional crisis is poised to deepen.

The agreement signed on March 13 in Dakar, Senegal, between Chadian President Idriss Déby and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir might have appeared a spot of good news for a part of the world that has been on a steady slide toward chaos. It wasn’t. Relations between Chad and Sudan are so volatile and international diplomacy so feeble that a non-aggression pact between the two countries is a warning sign for more conflict to come. These quarrelsome neighbors have signed four peace accords in the past two years, and in each instance fighting broke out shortly thereafter. This time, it took less than a week for the regimes to accuse one another of violating the Dakar Agreement, and just over two weeks for Darfur-based Chadian rebels backed by Khartoum to attack Chadian government forces in the strategic border town of Adé, where pitched gun battles left seven civilians dead and 47 wounded.

Civilians living near the volatile border—including hundreds of thousands of refugees and millions of displaced persons—are not the only ones at risk. Hundreds were killed and tens of thousands displaced 400 miles away in N’Djamena, Chad’s capital, during a failed rebel coup attempt in early February. Intense fighting drove tens of thousands of Chadian civilians into Cameroon and Nigeria. Meanwhile, conflict and organized banditry is engulfing northern Central African Republic and the Chadian rebels, armed with heavy weapons provided by the Sudanese government, are expected back in N’Djamena before the start of the rainy season in June. The international community must finally demonstrate coordinated leadership in pursuing the 3Ps of crisis response:

Peacemaking: The United States and key partners—such as France, the United Kingdom, China, the European Union, the United Nations, and the African Union—must commit adequate diplomatic and financial resources to a major peace initiative for Sudan and Chad. A full-court diplomatic press to resolve the conflict in Darfur must be matched with efforts to bring about profound political changes inside Chad and, ultimately, end the proxy war between Sudan and Chad.[1]

Protection: The international community must take steps to protect civilians by expediting the full deployment of the joint U.N./EU hybrid mission to Chad and the hybrid U.N./AU mission to Darfur. The U.N. Security Council and the European Union should revise the U.N./EU force’s mandate to include monitoring of an eventual ceasefire between the Chadian government and Chadian rebels.

Punishment: As ENOUGH called for in a February 11 joint statement with the Save Darfur Coalition and the Genocide Intervention Network, the U.N. Security Council must respond with targeted sanctions against senior Sudanese officials responsible for sponsoring the overthrow of a neighboring sovereign government, committing atrocities against civilians, blocking the deployment of peacekeeping forces, and failing to implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA. Moreover, Chad’s continuing support for rebels in Darfur, and increasingly brazen operations by its own troops against Chadian rebel groups based there, should be met by sanctions. Finally, the Security Council must enforce the arms embargo for Darfur, which is routinely violated, and consider an international arms embargo on Chad.

Interlocking Conflict Systems: A Downward Spiral

As outlined in a recent ENOUGH report, Chad’s internal conflict is the outgrowth of an exclusionary and militarized political system which has seen political power won through the barrel of a gun and maintained through repression. Meanwhile, President Déby’s masterful ability to engender factionalism has helped make him Chad’s longest serving head of state. His fortunes began to change in 2003, however, when Khartoum realized that members of Déby’s Zaghawa clan were arming Sudanese Zaghawa rebels in Darfur. Fearing that Chad’s involvement could strengthen the hand of Darfur’s growing armed opposition, the Sudanese government gradually aligned itself with armed factions seeking regime change in Chad.

Darfur’s rebels started as village self-defense forces engaged in local, small-scale conflicts related to land tenure. As they evolved into organized insurgent groups fighting against broader political marginalization and neglect, they found themselves confronting lethal Janjaweed militias backed by heavily armed, mechanized units of the Sudanese military. In the face of this larger and more powerful force, Chadian sponsorship—including safe harbor and material and logistical support—became a matter of military survival for the rebels. Covert Chadian government support for Darfur rebels, including the Sudanese Liberation Army, or SLA, and the Justice and Equality Movement, or JEM, went overt in December 2005 after Chadian rebels backed by Khartoum hit the strategic border outpost of Adré—and thus began the proxy war between Chad and Sudan.[2]

With time, Darfur’s rebels went from somewhat ambiguous allies to the indispensable agents of the Chadian government’s strategy, repelling attacks on Chadian soil (including the early February siege of N’Djamena) and engaging Chadian rebels within Darfur. The Chadian government’s embrace of the JEM is especially intimate. President Déby’s older brother, Daoussa Déby, is related by birth to JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim, and many JEM soldiers have been incorporated into units of the Chadian army. This increasingly close alignment between JEM and the Chadian government has muddied the waters of war, and impeded regional and international efforts to unify the various Darfur rebel groups, thus prolonging that conflict.

Despite this interdependence, however, the proxy war between Chad and Sudan is radically asymmetrical. Sudan-backed Chadian rebels represent a credible threat to the Déby regime, but the Chad-backed Darfur rebels do not directly threaten Khartoum. The Sudanese government sponsored a coup attempt in April 2006, just prior to the signing of the failed Darfur Peace Agreement in Abuja. Since then, Sudanese government support for the Chad rebels has kept President Déby busy defending his turf, but Khartoum only recently embarked on an earnest attempt at regime change. The Sudanese government’s Chad policy grew significantly more aggressive in late 2007 after a JEM offensive forced Khartoum to move Chadian rebel units into blocking positions around Geneina, the capital of West Darfur. During the same offensive, Chadian rebel positions in the area were bombarded by Chadian government military aircraft.[3]

With hawks in Khartoum ascendant, support for the Chadian rebels increased dramatically. Gen. Salah Abdallah Gosh, Sudan’s Director of National Intelligence, personally oversaw efforts to organize and unify the Chadian factions into an army capable of toppling the Déby regime.[4] Moreover, as noted by the New York Times’ Lydia Polgreen in a recent article, “fears that a pro-Sudanese government could seize power in…Ndjamena have led much of the world to stick by Mr. Déby, despite the increasing repressiveness of his rule.”[5]

Defusing the Proxy War

Although the rebellions in Chad and Darfur have unique histories, peace cannot be achieved in Darfur without reserving a place at the negotiating table for the Chadian government. Nor can peace be achieved in Chad without a buy-in from the Sudanese government. Further, diplomatic efforts to defuse the proxy war between Chad and Sudan thus far have been ad-hoc and the agreements reached between Presidents Deby and Bashir have been empty theatrics. Moreover, these efforts have been detached from ongoing, though feeble, peacemaking efforts for Chad’s and Sudan’s internal conflicts (see recent ENOUGH Reports “Is Anyone Serious about Ending the Political Crisis in Chad” and “Creating a Peace to Keep in Darfur”).

This is not surprising. The international response to the crisis in Sudan and Chad is consistently half-measured. The international community calls for mediation and then devotes limited resources to peace processes. It authorizes peacekeeping missions and then fails to fully deploy them. It imposes an arms embargo and then watches as arms flow freely into the region. It calls for accountability and then sanctions four people, over a five-year period of orchestrated atrocities, and the cost of this failure is higher by the day.

The sub-region is increasingly unstable. Chad sits on a knife’s edge. The situation in Darfur has degenerated dramatically in recent months. Armed groups from Chad and Sudan, including the Chadian rebels and units of the Chadian army, have further destabilized the bandit-ridden northern reaches of the Central African Republic. Following the Chadian rebel coup attempt in February 2008, 30,000 residents of N’Djamena sought refuge in northern Cameroon; Chadian rebels wounded in the fighting are among them, as are the Chadian intelligence agents who hunt them. Another 3,500 Chadians crossed into Nigeria, prompting officials there to announce that the crisis in Chad posed security risks not only to Nigeria, but to the sub-region as a whole.

1. Peacemaking: Step-up regional diplomacy

The March 13 Dakar Agreement differs from four previous peace deals between Chad and Sudan in that it created a Contact Group to oversee its implementation, comprised of Libya, Congo-Brazzaville, Eritrea, Gabon, and Senegal.[6] The Contact Group is a welcome innovation, but it will be crucial to include other actors—particularly the United States, France, United Kingdom, China, the European Union and the United Nations—in efforts to secure and police a ceasefire between Chad and Sudan. The U.S. State Department should send additional political officers to N’Djamena to support this initiative, and base a full-time political-military affairs officer in eastern Chad to deal directly with the warring factions. France, the United Kingdom, China, the European Union and the United Nations should also devote more diplomatic resources to the process.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon told the parties at the Dakar Agreement signing ceremony this March that the United Nations is ready to do everything within its capacity to assist them in stabilizing the border region, and has taken the position that the conflicts in Chad and Sudan (and the Central African Republic) should be addressed in a coordinated effort that takes into account the root causes of the internal conflicts as well as their regional dimensions. Consistent with his statements, the Secretary General should direct his Special Representative in Chad, Victor Angelo, to coordinate with his U.N. counterpart in Darfur, Ashraf Qazi, toward achieving a lasting détente between Chad and Sudan through concerted and comprehensive diplomatic efforts.

2. Protection: Deploy effective peacekeeping forces

The asymmetrical nature of the Chad-Sudan proxy war presents President Déby with a conundrum: Cutting ties with the Darfur rebels is both a prerequisite for peace with Sudan and tantamount to capitulation in his war with the Chadian rebels. Rebels from both Chad and Sudan would face a similarly impossible choice in the event of a cease-fire: Disarmament and demobilization could be suicide politically (and perhaps literally)[7] . Any agreements therefore require close monitoring by international peacekeeping forces to keep the warring factions apart and prevent reprisals.

Last year, the international community finally authorized and began to dispatch forces to both sides of the Chad-Sudan border. In July 2007, the Security Council authorized the hybrid United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur, or UNAMID, which took over from its African Union predecessor on January 1. Less than two months later, in September, the Security Council authorized a joint E.U. and U.N. “multidimensional presence” called EUFOR and MINURCAT respectively, to protect civilians in Chad and the Central African Republic. However, both UNAMID and EUFOR are struggling to reach full deployment. Former U.N. Secretary General (and former head of U.N. peacekeeping) Kofi Annan recently noted, “We have these conflicts where no one really wants to get involved, powerful countries with means will not touch it with a barge pole, they will support weak, ineffectual initiatives by others, sometimes by a sub-regional or regional organization, to create the impression of action.”[8]

In Darfur, U.N. member states must immediately contribute the forces, civilian components, and heavy equipment needed to render UNAMID fully capable. In Chad, E.U. member states must help EUFOR reach full operating capacity as quickly as possible. At the same time, the United States, France, the United Kingdom and China should immediately begin consultations within the Security Council and with the European Union to revise EUFOR’s mandate to include monitoring an eventual ceasefire.[9] At present, the mandate is to protect civilians and humanitarian workers, but, in the event of a ceasefire, the EU force must be able to assume a more traditional peacekeeping role. Further, it is time to prepare the ground in Chad and the Security Council for an eventual handover to the United Nations at the end of EUFOR’s one-year mandate in March 2009. In the event of a peace agreement, the U.N. successor force must be mandated to carry out demobilization, disarmament, and reintegration activities, or DDR.

3. Punishment: Impose sanctions and staunch weapons flows

A diplomat involved with Darfur recently told ENOUGH, “If the Chadians want to fight a war, and the Sudanese want to fight a war, there’s nothing we can do to stop them.” Peace surely starts and ends with the warring parties, but many influential actors could and should be doing much, much more to make the decision to continue to fight as costly as possible, and the peace option more attractive.

Toward that end, the U.N. Security Council must finally impose targeted sanctions on Sudanese government officials responsible for atrocities in Darfur, obstructing the deployment of UNAMID, non-implementation of the CPA, and, last but not least, organizing and arming Chadian rebels for operations against the Chadian government. The Security Council must also sanction individuals within the Chadian government who, in violation of the Darfur arms embargo, are supporting Darfur rebel groups. Indeed, if international partners are to make a sincere effort to change the calculations of the warring parties, they must enforce the existing arms embargo for Darfur and consider similar measures for Chad.

China’s weapons sales to Khartoum have gained worldwide notoriety, and the same weapons appear, in violation of the arms embargo, to have found their way into the hands of Chadian rebels based in Darfur.[10] But China is by no means the only country arming the warring parties. France, which has been much more active than China in efforts to resolve the internal conflicts in Chad and Sudan, paradoxically supplies weapons to Chad, which has been carrying out offensive military operations in Darfur and sponsoring JEM’s operations there as well. U.S. military assistance to Chad, though non-lethal, is also problematic when considered in this light. Continued violations of Sudan’s territorial integrity by the Chadian army, or by way of support for Sudanese rebels, should result in an international arms embargo on Chad.

And although nations can legally sell arms to Khartoum—the arms embargo only applies to weapons going into Darfur—China, Russia, and other nations would be wise to condition future arms sales on ending atrocities and negotiating a peace for Darfur, implementing the CPA, and ceasing support to Chadian rebel proxy forces.

Conclusion: Déby’s last stand?

After Chadian government forces beat back the Chadian rebel assault on N’Djamena in February, Déby began preparations for the next coup attempt: He dispatched senior aides to Ukraine to purchase weapons, began construction on a huge trench encircling the capital, laid concrete blast barriers at the gates of the presidential palace, and cut down thousands of trees in the capital to prevent rebels from using them as cover. Déby’s defensive strategy is obvious: invite the Chadian rebels back for a final showdown in the streets of N’Djamena—home to 700,000 people—and cede the rest of the country by implication. At the same time, a close family member of the president told ENOUGH that Déby is considering alternatives to total war. “Even his children are saying to him, ‘Other presidents in other countries pass the power,’” he said. “He’s starting to realize that he has to do something different.”

Whether or not Déby does “something different” depends largely on the international community’s response not only to events in Chad, but also to the crisis in Sudan. So long as Darfur bleeds and the CPA falters, the region will remain a humanitarian and human rights catastrophe.

This report was drafted by a regional expert working in the region.

[1]For more on the internal conflicts in Sudan and Chad, and recommendations for international mediation, go to www.enoughproject.org.

[2]As of January 2008, the JEM and the SLA had fragmented into five main rebel factions or factional alliances: the Sudan Liberation Army/Abdel Shafie (SLA/Abdelshafie), an alliance of five factions that attended consultations in Juba, South Sudan, late last year; the SLA/Unity, an alliance led by Suliman Jamous and Sharif Harir; SLA/Abdelwahid, which remains mostly a political actor with minimal military impact in Darfur; the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), led by Khalil Ibrahim; and a JEM splinter called JEM Collective Leadership, led by Ibrahim’s former confidant, Bahar Abu Garda.

[3]The Sudanese government issued a formal complaint to the UN Security Council. See http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article25366

[4]The three Chadian rebel groups involved in the February fighting in N’Djamena included the Union of Forces for Democracy, or UFDD, militarily the strongest rebel faction, led Déby’s former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Mahamat Nouri; the Rally of Forces for Change, or RFC, a faction that has been depleted by defections to the government side since late 2007 but which remains politically potent, led by Timane Erdimi, Déby’s nephew and former chief of staff; and the UFDD-Fundamental, a UFDD splinter led by Abdelwahid Aboud Makaye.

[5]Lydia Polgreen, “Rebels’ Border War Prolongs Darfur’s Misery and Engulfs Chad in the Conflict,” New York Times, April 13, 2008. Available at

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/world/africa/13chad.html?ref=africa

[6]The contact group is charged with follow-up on the implementation of the Dakar Agreement and the monitoring of possible violations. It is co-chaired by Libya and the Congo.

[7]President Déby has a somewhat imperfect record of respecting amnesty provisions. Abbas Koty, a former member of Déby’s government who went into insurgency under the banner of the National Committee for Recovery, or CNR, was assassinated by Déby’s security forces days after he signed a 1993 peace accord providing for the integration of CNR soldiers into the Chadian army and for the group’s eventual establishment as a political party. More recently, Mahamat Nour, founder of the Front Uni pour la Changement, or FUC, signed a December 2006 peace accord that made him Chad’s minister of defense, only to find himself facing arrest and forced to take refuge at the Libyan embassy in N’Djamena less than a year later. In March 2008, Nour slipped out of the embassy compound and crossed into Niger, and made his way from there to the United Arab Emirates.

[8]Warren Hoge, “Annan Says UN is ‘Overstretched’ by Global Conflicts,” New York Times, March 21, 2008. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/world/21nations.html?_r=1&ref=world&or…

[9]The current mandate, as defined by UN Security Council Resolution 1778 is as follows:
• To contribute to protecting civilians in danger, particularly refugees and displaced persons
• To facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid and the free movement of humanitarian personnel by helping to improve security in the area of operations
• To contribute to protecting U. N. personnel, facilities, installations, and equipment and to ensuring the freedom of movement of its staff and United Nations and associated personnel

[10]“France Says Finding Too Many Chinese Arms in Africa,” Reuters, December 14, 2006. Available at http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L14574602.htm

The following interviews, oral narratives, and articles were created by writing students and their professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The project was started as part of the One Book, One Philadelphia festival, which selected What Is the What for their 2008 program. These pieces were originally published serially in the Philadelphia City Paper. The students at Drexel are continuing their involvement with helping Sudan and are trying to establish a scholarship program for Sudanese students at Drexel. For more information, email Harriet Millan, the director of the University Writing Program and the coordinator of this project.

Click any of the following titles to jump down to the full text:

1. SCARS: An oral narrative by Michael Kuch with Harriet Levin Millan
2. ESCAPE ARTIST: Interview with Sudanese refugee and UPenn student Ahmed Elmardi
3. WHEN THERE IS A PEACE THAT I AGREE WITH: Interview with Darfur refugee
4. IN KHARTOUM, I WAS THE ENEMY: The story of Sudanese refugee Nyoun Yok Gargik
5. TO ESTABLISH JUSTICE: Interview with Darfurian refugee Amira Tibin
6. LEARNING TO SURVIVE: Interview with Sudanese refugee James Lual
7. PRESCRIPTION FOR PEACE: A moment with Darfur activist Dr. Abdelgabr Adam
8. THINGS TO TAKE BACK: A Darfuri refugee raises awareness for the people left behind
9. OFF THE CLOCK: Interview with Sudanese refugee Eltigani Abualgasim
10. HOME FREE: Interview with Isaiah Kuch, of the Lost Boys of Sudan

SCARS

By Michael Kuch with Harriet Levin Millan

This first-person account tells the story of refugee Michael Kuch’s journey as one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. Harriet Levin Millan Director of The Drexel University Writing Program and the author of The Christmas Show (Beacon Press) interviewed Kuch and pieced his answers together in fluid prose.

These scars on my forehead? These are not my initiation scars. They are not the scars a boy gets when he goes into the forest to become a man. I did not live in my village and with my family long enough. Initiation happens to boys when they are somewhere around 10 years old. I was much younger when I was forced to seek a home elsewhere. These are razor blade scars. When I was about 5 years old I had some problems with my eyes — maybe just some dirt in my eyes — I don’t know how serious it was, and my grandmother cut my forehead with a razor blade to improve my health. I still remember the pain. The blood. I didn’t like my grandmother after that. Her name was Nyankuerdit. The “it” at the end of her name means “big,” a sign of respect like you would say in English, my esteemed Grandmother Nyankuerdit.

The government systematically planned to destabilize my village, Bor, in southern Sudan, because it was the home of John Garang, the man who started the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement and began the rebel uprising. My village was attacked at night. Planes bombarded it with bombs and set it afire. My family was scattered. I joined a crowd of people and walked with them. When I first started walking I wore shoes, but this walk went on for three months and most of it I did barefoot.

There are two seasons in the Sudan, the dry season and the rainy season. This happened during the dry season, which is hot, windy and humid. We walked at night to avoid the hot sun and the winds, and because we’d be less thirsty. The problem with walking at night is that there are wild animals, which attack people. I saw lions and hyenas attack and kill people in my group. Another reason we walked at night was because we were walking though a war zone.

Even though I was so young, I was conditioned for the walk because I had spent many days with my siblings in the forest learning how to hunt animals. I was already skilled at learning how to survive. We walked days without food. Some of the walkers ate wild plants and others ate mud, which attached to their insides and killed them. It took me a long time after I moved to America to get accustomed to eating meals. For a year or so I only ate once a day, and still, I don’t eat a meal the way you do.

After three months of walking, I arrived at a refugee camp in Ethiopia. It was 1991 and Ethiopia was undergoing its own troubles with Eritrea. A civil war was breaking out and almost as soon as I had arrived, I had to leave abruptly in the middle of the night. This time it was the rainy season and the Nile, which runs through all of eastern Africa, was flooded. Not many of us knew how to swim. There are tribes who have always lived by the Nile. In fact, they are called Nilotes. These people knew how to make dug-out boats from trees. I was lucky enough to get a spot in one of the boats, but other people were pulled across the river with rope attached to the boats. I saw many people drown in that river. I also saw crocodiles in that river attack people.

I couldn’t make it back to Bor because it was so far away. Instead, I stopped at an Internal Displaced Persons Camp called Pachalla where food and medical attention were provided. But again, just as I was settling in, more violence broke out. Planes bombarded the camp day and night and it became unsafe to stay. It took me one month to walk to another refugee camp, Kakuma, in Kenya. I stayed at Kakuma for eight years, all that time learning how to survive in the camp, which meant learning how to live in a very small space with tension — clashes over food and water, and avoiding the Turkana, the tribe who lived nearby and often attacked refugees outside the camp.

In 2000, I got an offer from the U.S. state department to come to the U.S. I struggled with this decision, which meant leaving Africa, perhaps forever. I still didn’t know if my family, particularly my mother, was alive. Just about that time, I was united with three of my brothers and sisters, who it turned out had also come to Kakuma. Then, all of us were given the chance to immigrate to Philadelphia.

I always feel called to go back to Sudan. The whole American experience, the chance to get my B.A. here, and now, applying to graduate school, is an opportunity, but I will always want to go back and do more.

ESCAPE ARTIST

An interview with Sudanese refugee and UPenn student Ahmed Elmardi
By Lea T. Burns, Drexel University Student

They either kill you, or you leave the country,” says Ahmed Elmardi, speaking about the National Islamic Front (NIF) that took over the government of Sudan in 1989, shortly before he came to the United States.

Now a resident of Philadelphia, Elmardi was once an artist and university professor in Khartoum, Sudan. Although he had plans to leave Khartoum with a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania and an acceptance into its MFA program in painting, the NIF interfered.

“They changed the laws so that the government could hire and fire as they pleased,” he says. “They prepared a long list of people to fire from universities. I was one of those people.”

Elmardi says the regime targeted the universities first because there was potential power in the student movement. At one time, students were able to change the government through strikes and demonstrations. Elmardi remembers the October Revolution in 1964, when students from the University of Khartoum banded together with the trade unions and successfully overthrew Ibrahim Abboud’s military dictatorship in Sudan. Since then, governmental changes in how universities are run prevent anything like that from happening now.

“They deliberately worked to deprive the country from its soul,” he says. “Artists, musicians and poets were all forced or encouraged to leave the country one way or the other.”

Along with many of his colleagues and other community intellectuals, Elmardi was arrested and imprisoned without reason. Calmly, he recounts his time spent in the detainment center. He explains that in order to maintain a sense of fear and minimize any resistance in the Sudanese people, the prisoners were tortured — or worse. Elmardi specifically remembers one of his fellow detainees, a pilot, taken from his cell and hanged.

“At that time they were very harsh,” says Elmardi. “They didn’t even care if you were related to one of them.”

After a month in the detainment center, Elmardi was released. As to why, he cannot say. He assumes that they let him go because they knew he was accepted into the graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania.

“I think I was lucky,” says Elmardi. “Especially because if I stayed there I don’t know what would have happened to me. I remember walking to the plane and looking behind me to see if anyone was following.”

Life as an immigrant in the United States has been far from easy. “I found myself without a Social Security number,” he says. “I thought, so what can I do now? I tried to drive a cab but I didn’t last more than one week. That wasn’t me.”

Elmardi says the immigrant people’s ability to bounce back is remarkable. Even the ATM machines posed serious problems for the Sudanese who came to the United States in the 1990s because they never had to use one before. So many years later, Elmardi believes that the Sudanese community has gained its footing.

“They have built their lives,” he says. “By now many have their own houses. It is very interesting to see how people have all this resilience.”

After completing his MFA in painting from Penn and starting his own graphic design company, Elmardi is surprised at how long he has been in Philadelphia. “In the beginning I thought, I am here only for a short time,” he says. “And now this is really half of my adult life — 18 years.”

With his wife, Iman, and 9-year-old son, Monier, in Philadelphia, Elmardi says it is too late for him to return to Sudan, despite his love and attachment to the country.

“A lot of my friends are not there anymore,” he says. “It is just too much to deal with. I have my son doing quite well in school. So to take him back there, to start again — the threat is still there. It would not be good for him and it would not be good for me, either.”

Asked to compare Khartoum and Philadelphia, Elmardi speaks in visual terms. He mentions that Khartoum suffers a lot from sandstorms, making the city look brown. He also says that shadows are much stronger in the cities in Sudan because the light is more intense. Still, continents apart, Elmardi can draw similarities between his native city and his new home. He sees shapes, shadows and lines that bring back memories of his life in Khartoum.

“Sometimes I am driving and I think I am home,” he says with a smile.

Currently, Elmardi is focusing on his art, which includes sculpture, mixed media and animation. With his wife, he started a Web site for contemporary Sudanese artists around the world. He says the site is an important tool because it educates viewers on contemporary art from Africa’s largest country and exposes Sudanese artists to an international audience.

WHEN THERE IS A PEACE THAT I AGREE WITH

An interview with Darfur refugee Fatima Haroun
By Sarah Mason, Drexel University Student

Fatima Haroun’s delicate handshake reveals nothing of her tormented life back in Darfur. Today she is a social worker for the City of Philadelphia, a mother, and the vice president of the Darfur Alert Coalition, a nonprofit based in Philadelphia.

Darfur is under the rule of “dictators who discriminate,” she says.

“Those who are not favored are marginalized,” says Haroun. “People like me don’t find many chances in our country for work and education.”

Survival, however, was the primary reason for Haroun and her family to come to the United States.

“The government [of Darfur] is racist,” she says, “killing the darker-skinned people first because there is hate and jealousy. Darfur is the second darkest region. They see the natural resources in these areas and want them, and use the Christian religion as a cover, saying they are killing them in a ‘holy war.’”

The villages surrounding Nirtity, her birth village, were systematically destroyed.

“The people came and attacked the village and set fire to everything,” she says. “Because of the noise, people came running, and they shot right at them. The elderly were burned, just like that,” she says, flicking her hand.

“They wanted to kill boys because they wanted to make the tribes weaker. They would take valuables before burning the villages, and they took my father’s mill and some corrugated metal and destroyed and hid them, because they wanted to destroy people economically.”

Haroun does not see the situation in her homeland changing anytime soon, pointing out that the president of Sudan recently appointed a suspected Janjaweed leader as his new adviser. “Janjaweed” translates to “devils on horseback.”

Haroun plans to get her master’s degree in the U.S., most likely in social work, and then return to Sudan to pursue her dream of running for parliament.

“I will work for stability,” she says, “and return when there is finally a peace that I agree with.”

Haroun believes that the international community has not done enough to stop the atrocities in Darfur.

“They announce this is genocide, but still didn’t take the right action,” she says. Haroun believes that the U.S. government has proven reluctant to help because of a past relationship with Sudan involving Osama bin Laden. As a result, she says, only non-governmental organizations are sending relief.

She urges all Americans to contact their congressional representatives and to spread the word.

“People need to put more pressure on the government to help, because political help is a necessity,” she says.

Much of Haroun’s family is still in Africa, including her brother, whose dream, she says, is to come to the U.S. and marry a woman here. Haroun also desperately wants to bring her father here, but cannot because she needs documented proof he held a presence in her childhood.

“I don’t know how to prove it,” she says with frustration. “It hurt me when they told me that.” She pauses. “I will bring him.”

She says the Sudanese community throughout the U.S. is committed and conflicted.

“We are trying to place ourselves and participate and contribute, and at the same time, trying to keep our culture to have our children learn,” she says. “We want to establish a community and build and organization to benefit and enable us to teach our children our language and culture.”

Haroun hopes that the City of Philadelphia can help the Sudanese community here “to build and fulfill our dreams in the new land.”

More information on the Darfur Alert Coalition: darfuralert.org. Sarah Mason is a senior at Drexel University.

IN KHARTOUM, I WAS THE ENEMY

The story of Sudanese refugee Nyoun Yok Gargik
By Titus Codjoe and Brett Haymaker, Drexel University Students

The following was adapted as a first-person narrative by Brett Haymaker and Titus Codjoe.

My name is Nyoun Yok Gargik. My mother gave me my first name and I inherited my last name from my father. It is a strong name, strong because my mother gave it to me and because it refers to a building material composed of cement and grass that we use in Sudan. I do not know the year of my birth.

One memory I have is of drinking milk directly from the cows at cattle camp with some other boys — a far cry from the Ph.D. I am now pursuing at Drexel University to become an electrical engineer.

I remember the day my mother came with a policeman to the cattle camp holding a telegram message from my father. My father had been in Kosti, north of Leir, working as a businessman along the White Nile River, and he wanted us to move there. I was too young to realize the telegram concerned the fighting. I was excited about the prospect of travel.

It was not until years later, after many nights staying up with my father listening to Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) news reports, when I would come to know of Islamic government soldiers burning villages and bombing cattle camps in the south. Leir, my home region, became a battleground. I was lucky. I never saw any rebels.

I moved to Rufah to attend boarding school in 1993. I remember a man at the school who spoke speculatively about Islam and often made religious jokes — something you just did not do. Word spread. Islamists climbed the walls and cut the power so nobody could be seen. They broke into his room and slit his throat with a knife because he spoke badly about Islam. His blood was on the walls.

In 1996, I graduated from school in Rufah and gained admittance into Khartoum University, located in North Sudan. Although I was admitted, I could not begin my studies for another year and a half. There were no students. They all joined to fight for the government, burning crops, bombing cattle camps and tearing down homes built of the material from which I’m named.

North Sudan is dominated by Islam. I am Christian. I am the minority. In Khartoum, I was the enemy.

After some time at the university, I led a bible study group. I received threats often, but there were others that shared my faith, and I was not alone. We knew of the unwritten law to not “reach out” to Muslims, but we organized a “Bible exhibition” anyway so we could demonstrate our faith to others.

A few Egyptian men who were part of our group did not show up the day of the exhibition. They had seen the written warning from Islamists posted the day before, threatening violent demonstration. Even professors from the university signed the warning. We propped up our tent and laid bibles out on tables. There were 15 of us, so when the 300 Islamic students showed up with sticks, throwing rocks and wielding knives, we ran for our lives.

Rocks flew into the tent striking peoples’ heads. A group of men cornered a friend named Peter, which is the English equivalent of his Arabic name. Peter was light-skinned, and did not look southern. They yelled at him, hitting him with sticks saying, “You are not from the South, why are you Christian?” Some protesters did not know what to do because he looked innocent, but Peter was trapped in a corner. A man knifed Peter’s side. He fell to the ground. Blood stained the walls built of cement and grass. All the Bibles burned.

This clash happened on a Saturday. The next day, Sunday, students from Juba University — a southern Sudan School — stormed Khartoum, climbing over the fences. Juba brought many people to chase the few Islamic students and faculty into nearby mosques, threatening to burn down the buildings with the people still inside. I heard people say these things, but I did not support this. I did not want to waste more human life. Luckily, nobody went through with it and the mosques remained.

I pursued legal action against the demonstrators. My lawyer was Arab and Muslim. Because I was a Christian, he did not do anything. The case never went anywhere. He even cursed me out when I questioned him about it.

A few of the demonstrators were connected with Sudanese Security, an organization similar to the Secret Service in the United States. My case against them made me a target, like the man killed at my school for talking badly about Islam. In Sudan, it is very common for people to be taken in the night. Many pastors of churches disappeared this way.

My nights became sleepless. I feared for my life and knew I could not stay. I applied for a U.S. student visa and was granted political asylum. I moved to Columbia, S.C., to live with a Sudanese man I knew from childhood. From there I moved to Indianapolis, Ind. I was not working and had little money. It was in Indianapolis where I learned of the “Lost Boys” community in Philadelphia. An American family in Jenkintown, who were members of the New Life Presbyterian Church, took me in. I’ve been in Philadelphia ever since.

One day I will help in building a stronger Sudan — one whose boundaries do not reflect the composition of the North or the composition of the South but of one united, composed Sudan.

TO ESTABLISH JUSTICE

Interview with Darfurian refugee Amira Tibin
By Shazia Mehmood, Drexel University Student

Unable to hold back her tears, Amira Tibin speaks of the recent government-backed attacks in Darfur that killed her uncle and left 200 people dead.

Tibin, 39, was born and raised in Al-Fashir, the capital of Darfur. In 1985, when Tibin was 15, fighting erupted.

“The government was not trying to find a solution,” Tibin explained. “The government was part of the problem. When the fighting started, they gave weapons to the tribes to fight against one another.”

The standing government has received international accusations for oppressing non-Arabs and supplying the Arabs with ammunitions. Although the two groups have historically coexisted in Sudan, Tibin discussed the cause of the current conflict:

“Colonization was part of it, but the government in Sudan widened the conflict. By giving weapons to the Arab tribes, racism resulted.” In a country full of rioting, Tibin explained, the government did not fulfill its duty to establish justice.

Tibin’s husband, Ibrahim, brought her near the people in power. Omar Al-Bashir, the current leader of Sudan, was raised in the same village as Ibrahim. Although they were close as children, their beliefs became polar opposites. When the rioting started, Ibrahim realized the government’s role in the conflict, and called a meeting with Al-Bashir. In doing so, he put his life on the line to speak out against the injustice.

Eventually Ibrahim escaped to Yemen with Tibin and their daughter, Emtithal. In Yemen, Tibin bore another daughter, Afaq. Tibin could not imagine leaving Africa, as her extended family was still in Sudan. However, she felt like an outsider living in Yemen, so she entered the lottery for immigration to the U.S.

“I did want my children to get a good education in America. But how could I be happy leaving my people in Sudan, when there is still so much suffering?” Tibin said.

After she was settled in the United States, Tibin and her family knew that they had to go back to Sudan to help others. They stayed in Sudan for six months in 2000.

“At that time,” Tibin recalled, “there were protests on the streets. Schools were closed because the government wasn’t paying teachers anymore. I saw people dying in front of my eyes. People were not only shot in the middle of the streets, but also in their houses. The Janjaweed could come any time and kill you, even during the day.”

“Janjaweed” translates as “the devil on the horse” — soldiers who rode into the cities with guns and bombs, attacking innocent civilians.

“While we were in Sudan, my daughters were very close to my younger brother, Saif, who was only 17 years old,” Tibin said.

Saif had plans to attend college, but the government forced men to join the national defense military.

“I told him not to go. But he had no choice. They would come into his house and take him if he didn’t go then,” Tibin said.

Tibin visited Sudan again in 2005. Saif was nowhere to be found. Tibin paused before discussing these deeply entrenched memories:

“We looked everywhere, called everyone, and traveled throughout Sudan. To this day, he is still missing.” Tears began to flow slowly from Tibin’s eyes, as she spoke of him.

Another one of Tibin’s brothers, Abdul, also served in the military, and his experiences have left him scarred. After serving his time, he was traveling back home, when bombing broke out. His closest friends were killed right in front of him. He survived by finding shelter under a bridge. The resulting psychological effects turned him into a quiet, reserved man, hopeless about the situation in Darfur.

Along with her two daughters, Tibin now has two sons, Imam, 5, and Abdullah, 7 months. When asked if she was happy, Tibin responded by saying, “No, I am not happy. I do like that my children are receiving an education, but I will never be able to forget about my people in Sudan. We receive calls frequently with news of another family member’s death. Just yesterday … the rioting. The problem has not been solved in Darfur, and until then, I cannot be happy.”

Despite the losses Tibin has faced, her desire to work toward peace in Sudan has grown even stronger. She is currently actively involved in a local grassroots organization, Darfur Alert Coalition (darfuralert.org), to respond to the ongoing aggression in Darfur.

Tibin says that her great-grandparents’ stories of the beautiful city of Al-Fashir, filled with nomads, farmers, and businessmen working together peacefully have remained in her heart.

Shazia Mehmood, a senior at Drexel University, is a pre-medical student, majoring in history and political science.

War in Darfur
by Emtithal Mahmoud (Tibin’s daughter)

The merciless soldier,
With a heart that’s a boulder,
Blinded by fear,
Desperate cries for help, he’ll never hear.
Roaming the streets with a charred black soul,
No one is safe, not woman not man, not young and not old.
Knowledge is forcibly pushed aside,
Because power has now taken the stride.
What was once a sanctuary, a haven for all,
Is now no haven, but a place where innocent lives did fall.
What’s going on is a senseless, cold hearted war;
Bad against good, strong against weak, all in Darfur.
Possessions are gone, everything is wrong.
People aren’t happy, and homeless and hungry,
Worst of all is that no one is free.
Families are shattered, in this big bloody battle.
Good people loose jobs
And are replaced by slobs.
No female is safe,
Because she is a subject to rape.
People are murdered throughout the nation,
Because of this, mostly orphans make up the population.
There is no respect and there is no pride,
The only thing there is, is GENOCIDE.
I believe it’s time to put this to an end,
For there are lives to defend.
Take action, or sit in grief? If you still don’t know
which side to choose,
Ask yourself one question, “What did the children do?”

LEARNING TO SURVIVE

An interview with Sudanese refugee James Lual
By Monica Singh and Amy Brammell, Drexel University Students

As young boy living in Ajueny — a Dinka village of 5,000 in southern Sudan — James Lual and other children would work together from nine to six each day, tending the goats and cows in cattle camps on the outskirts of the village. Isolated, Ajueny did not immediately receive news of the war in Sudan, and village elders were unable to explain the drastic changes that Lual would soon experience.

He watched while older boys left the village to fight the government. “I didn’t know why my cousins were leaving. It wasn’t until I saw a plane go and drop bombs that I knew what was happening.” When government soldiers set fire to Lual’s village, he was forced at gunpoint from his home.

Wearing a hand-me-down school uniform and a pair of bedroom slippers cut from rubber tires, Lual walked with a growing number of boys to Ethiopia, 500 miles away. On the emotionally painful and physically dangerous journey across the desert, the boys were plagued by starvation, thirst and wild animal attacks. Lual carried only a water container.

“It was so painful to carry above my head or by my side, but I couldn’t throw it away,” Lual says. After nearly three months of walking, Lual reached Pinyudo, the first of three refugee camps he’d call home over a period of 10 years. There was little food at the camp and the boys relied on fishing and foraging in the jungle for food. Six months later the United Nations became involved, providing food, clothing and shelter. They sent adults to help care for and teach the displaced children, now deemed “unaccompanied minors.” (Lual’s father had been killed; his mother was lost to him somewhere in southern Sudan.)

It was here that the importance of education took root for Lual. “Our first school was under the trees. We would sit on stones and use the dirt as notebooks. We learned our ABCs and 123s,” he says. Each day, boys were recruited by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). “I was so excited about the SPLA recruiting kids. I wanted to join the army. Either you could go and kill or be killed, or die in the camp. Because of my size, I was turned down,” he says. Lual remained behind in Pinyudo for four years, continuing to learn, until another civil war broke out, this time in Ethiopia and the camp was no longer a safe place to stay.

In a struggle to survive, Lual and the other boys began another trek, this time across the flooded Gila River back to Sudan as shots were fired. “There was blood in the water. People would hold onto you until you were both dead. I was lucky that I learned to swim in Ethiopia,” says Lual. When he arrived in Pachala, a camp on the border between Ethiopia and Sudan, it took time for the United Nations to find a way to provide sufficient aid.

“A cup of beans would be rationed for seven people and would have to last five days,” Lual says. Soon the Sudanese government discovered Pachala, and boys were forced to dig holes in the ground to try to protect themselves from the bombing that ensued. Pachala was invaded by ground troops, and Lual was once again forced to move, walking along the border to Kenya.

“The 15-and-unders were taken on the UN convoy trucks. It was so crowded that people stood on top of each other, but I felt lucky to get a ride,” Lual says.

Eventually he reached Kakuma, the final destination for most refugees — a hot, dry desert region with no river. The camp here was very crowded. The UN provided a water tank for the refugees three times a day. People woke up at four each morning to get in line. The Sudanese refugees were often attacked by local tribes who had too little food themselves.

Life became more permanent, and shelters and schools made of mud and thatch were erected. Kenyan teachers were hired and paid to teach the boys, though many were understandably more concerned with getting up early to stand in the water line and to obtain their daily food rations. Lual did not miss the opportunity for education. Living without his parents, “Education was the only opportunity for me. I didn’t take it simple like the other boys who dropped out,” he says.

In 1997, the United States developed a program to relocate the “unaccompanied minors.” Immigrating to the United States was a dream still very far in the distance. He had learned not to get his hopes up over the long year of interviews with U.S. officials. Lual’s perseverance paid off when he received a letter from the United Nations, offering him the opportunity to live to the United States.

In 2001, Lual arrived at JFK International Airport in New York City around 9 p.m. A short flight to Philadelphia delivered him to Janet, a member of Lutheran Children’s Services (LCS) helping Sudanese refugees get settled. On his way to Quakertown, Lual went to his first McDonald’s, and learned how to pronounce “water.” At 20 years of age, Lual’s life in the United States had just begun. Quakertown church members working with LCS volunteered their time to taking care of him and getting him prepared for the GED and then enrolled at Bucks County Community College.

Even as life changed dramatically for Lual, a “Lost Boy” far from his native land, education remained critical in shaping his future. Today, Lual is a Chestnut Hill College graduate with a degree in political science. For the past six years, he has lived with his “mother,” Doris Brown, and recently with another helpful woman, Martha Fisher. Now 27, Lual works with Global Education Motivators as a public speaker at schools, libraries, and humanitarian organizations to tell his story and to make people aware of the suffering in Sudan and Darfur. He’s in the process of applying to graduate school with hopes of someday working for the United Nations.

Amy Brammell and Monica Singh are students at Drexel University.

PRESCRIPTION FOR PEACE

A moment with Darfur activist Dr. Abdelgabr Adam
By Gilbert Flores and Marisa McStravick, Drexel University Students

Dr. Abdelgabr Adam, trained in the Sudan as a gastrointestinal doctor, was born in Nyala, Darfur, 54 years before political strife plagued his homeland. Today, Darfur is the home of an ongoing military conflict. In April 2005, the Coalition for International Justice estimated 400,000 deaths since conflict arose in Darfur — the land Adam fights so hard for today.

“No one knows exactly how many were killed. It was like flying over an open cemetery. You could only see bones. No one will tell you how many died,” says Adam, describing what he saw during a flight in a small plane over a ravaged village.

In all, some 4,700 villages were struck by the genocide, each one’s 100-200 inhabitants dying from drinking water from poisoned wells, gunfire or starvation. “People are in a hurry. Mothers are forced to tie their small children to donkeys’ backs and let them go. They know they must choose between their own survival or death for the entire family,” says Adam.

The genocide in Darfur began in the early 1980s, but according to Adam, political oppression has existed for a long time. While in his 30s, he held the role of a special envoy, a position he compares to that of a political ambassador. He communicated with foreign countries, explaining Sudan’s horrifying situation and the ongoing oppression. It was a dangerous job, and when Islamic extremists took power in 1989, Adam was forced to flee Africa. He found political asylum in the United States.

During his first several years in the U.S., Adam traveled continuously until settling in Philadelphia in 2001. He became actively involved as a Darfur activist, speaking at rallies at colleges and universities. “It was not easy to convey the message because the international communities were not involved,” Adam recalls.

He was elected president of the Sudanese Association of the Greater Philadelphia in 2001-02, and helped to form the Western Sudan Association of Philadelphia. These days he’s president of the The Darfur Human Rights Organization, which he founded.

Spreading awareness is the key, he says. “Let what happened in Darfur be known.” He urges Americans to donate clothes, shoes, school supplies and relief items to people living in refugee camps. According to Adam, everyone can be a Darfur activist by urging people to make donations and participate in rallies. Above all, he asks Americans to donate their time to educating themselves about genocide.

To donate clothing, money or school supplies directly to Darfurians living in refugee camps, contact Dr. Abdelgabr Adam and the Darfur Human Rights Organization at darfur.h.r.org@hotmail.com.

THINGS TO TAKE BACK

A Darfurian refugee raises awareness and expectations for the people left behind
By Garelnabi Abusikin with Deborah Yarchun, Drexel University Students

Deborah Yarchun, a Drexel University screenwriting and playwriting student, sat down with Darfurian survivor Garelnabi Abusikin and interpreter Dr. Abdel Gabar Adam. These are the words Abusikin asked her to share.

Listen.

I have a basement in my home. It is filled with people’s shirts and shoes, 22 large sacks of clothes, 400 pounds of jeans, 12,000 pairs of flip-flops and about 40 Eagles hats. If you give me a shirt, I have a big basement. Everything that goes there is used. There is never enough. There are 420,000 refugees. Everything I get — I will take back.

I come from Darfur.

I was born in 1982 and when I was 5 years old, I listened to my mom and dad say, “Today, the Sudan government killed people.” My father was a chief of the Zaghawa tribe and a leader in Karnoi. Growing up as the son of a chief, on a daily basis we heard of people being killed. I’m 12 and the Janjaweed comes I hide inside with my family and when we emerge two days later, I find my uncle slaughtered, his throat slit ear to ear.

In 1999, I helped bury the bodies of 92 men killed while digging clean wells to provide water for the people. I’m 18 and bombs fall on our village, destroying Karnoi. I see the People’s Defense Force, the Janjaweed and the Sudanese army kill my uncles, my cousins, my brothers-in-law and about 100 of my friends. I run with my mother and sisters with no plans and no directions. Those who go north go straight into desert. The ones who go south run into more Janjaweed. We were lucky to go west and cross into El Fasher.

I have some photographs to show you. See this? This is my childhood friend, Shariff. In 2003 after escaping Karnoi, Shariff and I went to Al Neelain University in Khartoum. When we arrived, it was as if we are crazy and nothing happened. New skyscrapers are being developed and the people are happy. We heard nothing on the radio or in the newspapers about the murders. Nobody was speaking about it, because most did not know. The people in the U.S. know more about the genocide than the people in Khartoum. After witnessing the systematic murder of our people, Shariff spoke up. He led demonstrations in front of government buildings. “Stop poisoning the wells. Stop genocide in Darfur,” [he said]. At 10 a.m., I was having breakfast with him when an officer came in and shot him dead at close range in front of the students. I fled to Egypt and applied for refugee status with the U.N. High Commission for Refugees.

In the U.S., I spoke about Darfur. I testified for the Judgment on Genocide mock court held at the United Nations Church Centre in New York in November 2006. When the government in Sudan found out, they arrested my mother and sister. They beat my mother and shaved my sister’s head bald. They told my mother to tell me to be silent. My mother told me, “Don’t worry about us. We are like dead bodies who will never feel the skinning.” She told me to keep talking. To never stop talking. The more people talk about it, the fewer people die.

See this? This is my mother. This is my family. My little sisters. My baby brother. My aunt. They are now in a refugee camp in eastern Chad. My father is not there, because he stayed in Karnoi and was killed in another Janjaweed attack in 2005.

From Sept. 23 to Oct. 23, 2007, I went with the Darfur Human Rights Organization with the help of Amnesty International to the refugee camps. I saw my mother. I had not seen her in five years. She had changed so much, I could not recognize her.

In the refugee camps, the security consists of men, mothers and sisters and children with guns. The people are bone-thin. There is a riverbed, but it is dry. A few green containers with water dredged from the ground sustain the village. The people are not even waiting, they are enduring. Our roofless huts are of mud and sticks and sheets and the children huddle for shade against the sides. Each day is about existing.

There are many children, mostly orphans. My mother takes care of 17 of them. Sixty-five percent in each camp are children who never saw a father, but many times saw their mothers and sisters being raped. They are lucky to be alive, because when the villages were bombed, they ran and ran across the border to stay alive. They have no schools. They hardly have shelter or food to eat. Many will become soldiers and will be killed. They are hopeless, helpless. They have no future that they can see.

That is why I am going back.

In March, I will go back to the camps through the Darfur Human Rights Organization with president and co-founder Dr. Abdel Gabar Adam and other volunteers. We will bring clothes, food and medical supplies. We hope to continue our mission every three months with the goal of reaching the people four times a year. We are still looking for donations and money to purchase a water pump, which is needed desperately. One machine can supply clean water for 4,000 people daily.

When I return to the U.S., I will continue to drive a taxi, gather clothes and learn English so that I speak about my story.

I will not stop speaking until what is happening in Darfur stops. We need you to listen.

To contribute relief donations to the Darfur refugee camps in eastern Chad, or have a representative from Darfur Human Rights Organization make a public presentation, call 267-784-7073.

OFF THE CLOCK

An interview with Sudanese refugee Eltigani Abualgasim.
By B. Davin Stengel

Recently recognized as one of the best cab drivers in Philadelphia — nominated by the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Greater Philadelphia Hotel Association — Eltigani Abualgasim used to be in a very different kind of transportation business, helping to deliver Red Cross messages across Sudan and reconnecting families torn apart by war.

“One of our main programs was for unaccompanied minors, who are called ‘Lost Boys’ here,” says Abualgasim. “We did a lot of missions to trace the relatives of these minors — in the mountains, in southern Sudan, through war zones … it was very difficult.”

A graduate of the University of Khartoum with a bachelor’s degree in geography and a diploma in economics and development, Abualgasim spent the 1990s working for the tracing department of the Sudanese Red Crescent Society, where he led a team charged with helping concerned family members locate missing loved ones displaced by violence. In 2000 he traveled to Saudi Arabia where he lived for three and a half years before securing a visa to come to the United States, settling in Philadelphia in 2004.

“I left Sudan … before the war in Darfur started,” he says. “I was forced. The policy of the government is to drain the country of opposition.”

While Abualgasim has some extended family in the Philadelphia area, he is the only one of his siblings currently living in the United States, and the crisis in Sudan continues to affect his brothers and sisters directly. In 2006 his older brother, Abualgasim Ahmed Abualgasim — a longtime resident of Saudi Arabia and an opponent of the Sudanese government — was arrested by Saudi Arabian authorities and sent to Sudan, where he remained incarcerated for six months without ever being charged with a crime.

“He gave a talk at the Sudanese Embassy in Saudi Arabia, and the next day he was deported,” says Abualgasim. “When they brought him to Sudan, they tried to assimilate him by offering him an appointment as a minister. He refused.”

Abualgasim’s brother was released this past March, thanks in large part to the advocacy efforts of Amnesty International and other collaborative organizations. One of Abualgasim’s sisters was less fortunate. She resided in the Kuttum area of northern Darfur — where Abualgasim’s family is originally from — and died recently after being unable to seek medical treatment for a heart condition.

Here in Philadelphia, the situation in Darfur is never far from Abualgasim’s mind. He is active in a number of organizations — including the Sudanese National Rally, whose primary goal is to raise awareness among Sudanese living in the U.S. about ongoing human-rights violations in Sudan — and serves as volunteer director for Darfur Alert Coalition, a Philadelphia-area coalition of Sudanese and Americans offering educational programs and coordinating advocacy initiatives on behalf of the oppressed in Darfur.

Abualgasim clearly takes pride in his job, but he knows he won’t be driving a cab forever. “I want to go back to school to start my master’s degree,” he says. When asked what he plans to study, he says matter-of-factly, “Peace and conflict resolution.”

HOME FREE

Interview with Isaiah Kuch, of the Lost Boys of Sudan.
By Patrick Rapa

In a way, it’s remarkable Isaiah Kuch still feels a connection to Sudan.

He was only 6 when civil war forced him and thousands of others out of their villages in the southern part of the country. After that, he spent about four years in a refugee camp in Ethiopia and another eight in a camp in Kenya. In 2000, he and the other Lost Boys were relocated to the United States in search of education and safety. Kuch has lived in Philadelphia since then, studying and working.

Now, armed with U.S. citizenship and a degree in economics, it would seem like an easy choice to stick around and move on with his life.

Not Kuch.

“I will always believe one day I will go back to Sudan and make it my home again,” he says soberly. That’s a common sentiment among his fellow refugees. They want to return to the site of their most difficult times, where they lost their parents and siblings, to help the place build and develop.

When he wasn’t studying at La Salle University, Kuch was working several jobs and sending money back to his half sister and half brothers in Kenya. So far, he’s been able to make enough to get his siblings out of the Kakuma refugee camp and into school.

That was the place he called home the longest. It’s an immense camp set up by the United Nations to house refugees from Somalia, Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan. Only compared to Pinyudo — the initial makeshift settlement Kuch fled to in Ethiopia — does Kakuma look livable. “There was food, but not enough. Water, but not enough. Schools, but not enough qualified teachers,” recalls Kuch. Skipping meals was commonplace and education stopped at grade 12 (after that, you could be enlisted as a teacher yourself).

Kakuma was also the place the Lost Boys were finally old enough to understand their situation, as much as it can be understood. “When all that in Sudan started, nobody knew,” he explains. “You just think it’s a fight, you go and hide, it’s going to be alright. In the refugee camp you start going to school, you start asking the question why.”

When faced with the opportunity of being relocated to the U.S., he took it, though not without reservations. “You have to also keep in back of your mind: Is this taking me farther away from home? Most of us thought it couldn’t be worse than what we went through.”

So on a freezing cold day in November of 2000, Kuch’s plane touched down in Philadelphia. It was quite a shock to the system. He remembers back in hot, dusty Kakuma seeing a picture of Alaska and thinking he’d like to live in a place like that. “Alaska looks really beautiful in pictures,” he laughs. “We didn’t understand all that snow means cold.”

This year he’s gonna skip as much of the Philly winter as he can while visiting family in Kenya, Uganda and, if possible, Sudan. Kenya, once considered the most stable country in eastern Africa, is currently embroiled in social unrest surrounding its recent elections. Kuch isn’t scared. As long as the flights are still allowed in and out, he’ll be going.

And right now, the war in Sudan is quieted thanks to a peace agreement — though the situation in Darfur remains dire and some are skeptical about the government’s willingness to adhere to the concessions it’s made. While waiting to see how that plays out, Kuch is applying to grad schools.

“There is hope,” he says. “You can’t lose that. Once you lose that, you don’t have anything left. You got to have some hope or otherwise life is meaningless. That never goes away. However I do not cheat myself by believing that this hope is going to come easily. I do believe it’s going to be as complicated as my past. But one day, one time, it will come.”

In the 10 weeks since ENOUGH issued its report “Abyei: Sudan’s “Kashmir” the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, Sudan’s unique, ground-breaking political deal that formally ended 21 years of war between the Khartoum government and the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement, or SPLM, has lurched toward breakdown. There are many reasons for this, despite the fact that both sides show clear signs of wishing to avoid outright military confrontation. The principal reason, however, remains Khartoum’s failure to implement the CPA’s Abyei Protocol.

Sudanese president-by-coup Omar al-Bashir’s brutal 19-year reign has led to at least 2.5 million war-related deaths. By risking the CPA’s collapse, he risks scores of thousands more Sudanese lives. Critical external actors, including the United Nations Security Council and the United States of America, remain largely on the sidelines. The United States actually produced the Abyei Protocol, and President Bashir formally signed it on January 9, 2005, but he has repeatedly trashed it since then. Standing by is not an option unless one accepts descent into hell as an acceptable option for innocent Sudanese civilians. Sky-rocketing political tensions, large-scale recent killings, and a rapid military build-up by all sides have caused some Abyei experts to see a resumption of conflict as a realistic possibility once Misseriya herders and their livestock migrate north of Abyei in mid-to-late May (six or seven weeks from now).

Against the backdrop of deteriorating situations in Abyei and Darfur, both the United States and Sudan have recently expressed interest in moving toward a more normalized relationship before President George W. Bush leaves office in January 2009. Given the very low level of U.S. concern over non-implementation of the Abyei Protocol, as well as Khartoum’s undermining of the population census this month, its failure to implement the legal architecture for national elections (mandated by the CPA for 2009), and its continued stonewalling of deployment of peacekeepers to Darfur, the American people, the Congress and the media need to be particularly vigilant and vocal to assure the integrity of U.S. relations with Sudan. We must be crystal clear: The underpinning of all U.S. engagement with Khartoum should be the ending of the war in Darfur, the punishment of Darfur war criminals, the democratic transformation of Sudan that the CPA was intended to produce, and, last but not least, the full implementation of the Abyei Protocol.

Recent Abyei Events: An Update from the Ground

The Abyei Protocol, in recognition of Abyei’s uniqueness within the Sudan context, provides for a temporary administrative status within the North and South, a local governance mechanism to provide services to residents until 2011, a share of oil revenues to support those services to survivors and returnees, a security arrangement, and a referendum in 2011 to determine whether Abyei will be part of the North or the South. However, President Bashir has refused to implement any of the Protocol’s provisions, leaving this tension-racked territory without government, without services, without boundaries, without security, and without a clear future. Absent any strong reaction from the United States or the international community, Bashir’s unilateral abrogation of the Protocol has led directly to increasing violence and, as the CPA timeline moves on, virtually guarantees escalating insecurity.

And so it is. Last fall, when the SPLM temporarily withdrew its ministers from the national government to protest Khartoum’s non-implementation of CPA provisions, Bashir mobilized thousands of Misseriya men into the so-called Popular Defense Forces, or PDF. The Misseriya are the Arab neighbors of the African Ngok Dinka of Abyei who, by long-standing agreement, migrate with their animals for water and pasture into Ngok territory at certain times of the year. Since mobilizing the Popular Defense Forces—a militia similar in composition and purpose to Darfur’s notorious Janjaweed—violence has intensified in and around Abyei, with reports of the Sudanese military backing Misseriya militias and Sudan Peoples Liberation Army elements supporting the Ngok Dinka, but without direct clashes between the two national armies.

The U.N. Special Envoy to Sudan Ashraf Qazi reported to the Security Council in February that these clashes resulted in “considerable loss of life and property” and that Abyei was “the biggest stumbling block” between the CPA signatories. He credited First Vice President Salva Kiir with timely interventions to contain the violence by assuring Misseriya access to water and pasture under controlled conditions. Qazi underscored the need for defined borders—the very element that President Bashir has specifically vetoed—as indispensable to curtailing the Abyei violence. He also indicated that Abyei residents were missing out on the CPA’s so-called “peace dividend,” as there is neither a governance mechanism nor oil revenues available to pay for basic public services, again directly a consequence of President Bashir’s intransigence. Serious clashes have continued up to the present. Significant numbers of Misseriya understand, however, that President Bashir is trying to manipulate them for his own political gain and that their long term interests are best served by having good relations with their Ngok neighbors.

The SPLM, by withdrawing its ministers from the national government, seriously confronted Khartoum on Abyei. On January 14, First Vice President Salva Kiir, at a rally in Wau, announced his intention to field an SPLM temporary administration to Abyei, given President Bashir’s continued non-implementation of the Abyei Protocol. The SPLM and NCP engaged in a series of discussions to resolve their differences, reduce tensions, and avert unintentional outbreaks of hostilities between their forces. The parties appeared to be making progress on agreement on a temporary boundary and interim Abyei administration, without prejudice to a final settlement of the issues. However, the talks dragged on without closure, causing the SPLM serious concern about the implementation, without any local administration in Abyei, of the national Census scheduled in mid-to-late-April. Finally, on March 26 the SPLM temporary administration headed by Edward Lino was dispatched to Abyei to function until the permanent administration is appointed.

Khartoum went verbally berserk. In statements drenched with hypocrisy, Bashir’s spokesmen called the action “a stark violation of the CPA” and “against the spirit of partnership.” They said “dialog and negotiations are the only way to overcome the current tense situation.” They called for a halt in any “unilateral steps that threaten the stability of the area and lead to spoiling of the atmosphere of peace and national dialogue.” After almost three years of President Bashir’s abject refusal to implement any part of the CPA’s Abyei Protocol, which provides for a coherent administration for Abyei and resources to serve its residents, the NCP says it wants dialogue. Yet the military build-up continues. According to press reports, even some Sudanese army units that were rotated out of Darfur have been sent to the Abyei area. Civilians who have been displaced most or even all of their lives are again being displaced, and southern Sudanese officials have accused Sudanese army units of restricting the movement of civilian and the United Nations. The potential for inadvertent armed clashes looms large, with all the consequences that would hold for the CPA and its dream of elections and democratic transformation.

What next?

The current situation is simply untenable. There are too many men with guns and grudges in a very tense atmosphere, egged on by a deceptive NCP. Some experts expect that large scale violence will occur within weeks if there is not an agreement on a temporary Abyei administration. In particular, they are most worried about the period immediately following the May return migration of the Misseriya and their livestock to the north, out of Abyei. Once they are out of the South, there are few deterrents to hold back the Sudanese army or the Misseriya PDF militias if they choose to attack southward. The consequences for Sudan, if this occurs, would be enormous. And not just for the South. As U.N. Special Envoy Qazi has well said: “The predominant fact remain(s) that peace in the Sudan (is) indivisible. Should the CPA unravel, the prospects for a peaceful outcome in Darfur would largely disappear. Should the implementation of the CPA succeed, the prospects for an end to the humanitarian crisis and a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Darfur would brighten.”

The early April visit to Abyei of the U.S. Charge d’Affaires (the senior U.S. diplomat based in Sudan) and USAID Mission Director is a good first step for U.S. re-engagement. A second positive step occurred on April 7, when the NCP and SPLM agreed to allow U.N. peacekeepers unhindered access inside Abyei. Yet the United States and others must pay far greater attention to the core problem: President Bashir’s intransigence. President Bush’s administration achieved a major victory in its birthing of the CPA; that achievement ended a horrible war. However, the administration’s failure to follow up with strong action to implement the Abyei Protocol, as well as other key CPA provisions, threatens to consign the CPA to the diplomatic trash heap, with the potential of reopening hostilities.

Urgent U.S. Policy Imperatives on Abyei

President Bush himself, as a matter of duty and honor, should take the necessary steps to assure implementation of the Abyei Protocol, which his administration produced and which President Bashir signed. He should be very clear that there must be no inching toward improved relations with Khartoum unless Bashir takes sufficient, explicit steps to faithfully and fully implement the Abyei Protocol and the Abyei Boundaries Commission boundary decision.

1. Peace: Build Diplomatic Capacity

Until now, the Bush administration has not fielded adequate diplomatic capacity in Sudan to handle all that needs to be done there. One quick and effective way to increase capacity is to add a full-time senior diplomat to the staff of Special Presidential Envoy to Sudan Richard Williamson. An experienced diplomat working solely on Abyei could be one of the most important and cost-effective investments the administration could make.

2. Protection: Increasing Peacekeeping Presence

The 14-day active deployment of U.N. peacekeeping forces within Abyei town and through the surrounding area is an opening that should be quickly exploited. As it verifies the build-up of forces on both sides, the U.N. Mission in Sudan, or UNMIS, should seek agreement with the parties on a larger, more permanent U.N. military and civilian presence in Abyei to closely monitor the fragile situation, promote local reconciliation, and quickly report deterioration of conditions on the ground to the U.N. Security Council.

3. Punishment: Build Leverage through Accountability

On April 6, Sudan’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Abdul-Mahmood Mohamad, told the Khartoum press that the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, should be brought before a court of law and tried as a criminal. An appropriate response from the United States and the U.N. Security Council would be to demand the immediate arrest of Ahmed Haroun, a Sudanese government minister indicted by Ocampo for coordinating Khartoum’s vicious counterinsurgency in Darfur. Pressing to execute existing indictments for Darfur will make others think twice about inciting mass violence in Abyei.

The United States should also take a lead in finally imposing a cost on Khartoum for refusing to implement key provisions of the CPA (including the Abyei Protocol), blocking deployment of the U.N.-led peacekeeping mission to Darfur, failing to arrest indicted war criminal Ahmed Haroun, and continuing to attack civilians in Darfur. The Bush administration must gather support for a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing targeted sanctions against those Sudanese government officials most responsible. Absent measures to significantly alter the calculations of senior NCP officials, behavior change is, at best, unlikely.

Conclusion

The pattern of atrocities and intransigence that have characterized President Bashir’s 19-year rule does not bode well for the CPA and a lasting peace for all of Sudan. If the international community is indeed seized with the situation in Sudan, as international diplomats have said time and time again, it must finally translate rhetoric into action. Immediately addressing the deteriorating situation in Abyei would be a good place to start.

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration could remove Sudan from an American list of state supporters of terrorism and normalize relations if the Sudanese government agreed, among other steps, to allow Thai and Nepalese peacekeepers in its Darfur region, says a document outlining the American negotiating position for talks with Sudan that began Wednesday.

The document was part of a series of negotiating papers exchanged between the governments in preparation for talks in Rome. They were provided to The New York Times by an American government official critical of the administration’s position.

Sudan has already promised to let United Nations peacekeepers operate within its borders, and human rights advocates and others say it would be a mistake for the United States to offer any new incentives until Sudan carries out that and other pledges.

“Given the fact that Khartoum has been involved in negotiations repeatedly over the years regarding Darfur and the comprehensive peace agreements and has signed documents and consistently failed to implement what they’ve signed, why are we discussing normalization with them?” said Roger Winter, a former Sudan negotiator at the State Department. Richard Williamson, the United States envoy to Sudan, is in Rome for the talks with Sudanese officials. The broad thrust of the American position has been known, but the negotiating papers provide new details about the positions staked out by each side as they try to resolve differences over Darfur.

At least 200,000 people have been killed there since the Arab-dominated government of Sudan unleashed tribal militias known as the janjaweed on non-Arab rebel groups and civilians.

The papers show that the United States is demanding that Sudan speed up visas for humanitarian workers and allow private aid organizations to work in Darfur.

Sudan wants an end to economic sanctions imposed by the United States since 1997. Sudan complained in the negotiating papers that sanctions had continued “despite the many positive achievements” by its government in Khartoum.

In addition, Sudan wants United States backing for its membership in the World Trade Organization, American support for the cancellation of Sudan’s foreign debts and “the immediate release of the Sudanese detainees at Guantánamo.”

Sudan is further seeking a formal apology for the Clinton administration-era strike on the Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum. It was destroyed by American cruise missiles in 1998 in the days after the terrorist attacks on the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

American officials have acknowledged over the years that the evidence that prompted President Clinton to order the missile strike was not as solid as first portrayed, and have said that there was no proof that the plant had been linked to Osama bin Laden, a resident of Khartoum in the 1980s. But the United States has not ruled out the possibility that the plant did have some link to chemical weapons production.

Bush administration officials have acknowledged in the past that they have offered to restore full diplomatic ties, lift economic sanctions and remove Sudan from the American list of state sponsors of terrorism in exchange for concessions on Darfur.

The Sudanese government says the death toll in Darfur has been exaggerated, and has denied an accusation from President Bush that the killing there amounts to genocide.

The Sudanese government has signed several peace agreements relating to Darfur or another internal conflict, in the non-Arab southern part of Sudan. But international aid organizations and American officials say that Sudan has failed to carry through on the promises it made in those agreements.

Sudanese Army bombs and new attacks by Arab militias in the ravaged western region of Darfur have driven thousands of refugees into neighboring Chad, according to the United Nations. In the oil-rich region of Abyei, which is claimed by both the government of Sudan and the semiautonomous government of South Sudan, several hundred people have died in recent clashes between a large group of Arab nomads, the Misseriya, and South Sudan’s armed forces. Like the janjaweed militias, the Misseriya are armed by Sudan’s government.

Sudan, pressed by the Bush administration, signed a comprehensive peace agreement with the South in 2005, but President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has balked at carrying out major parts of the deal.

“We see this process of potential improvement in the United States/Sudan relationship as a holistic one, covering the entirety of Sudan,” said the text of the American negotiating document.

Sudanese officials, meanwhile, adopted a besieged air in their negotiating paper, complaining that the Darfur government had “suffered the brunt of many punitive measures which were either totally unjustified and/or politically motivated.”

I am deeply concerned by reports that the Bush Administration is negotiating a normalization of relations with the Government of Sudan that would include removing it from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. This would reportedly be in exchange for Khartoum’s agreement to allow Thai and Nepalese troops to participate in the joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur.

This reckless and cynical initiative would reward a regime in Khartoum that has a record of failing to live up to its commitments. First, no country should be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism for any reason other than the existence of verifiable proof that the government in question does not support terrorist organizations. Second, the Bush Administration should be holding the Government of Sudan accountable for its past promises to let UN peacekeepers operate within its borders – Khartoum’s record of inaction and obstruction when it comes to the deployment of the AU-UN force must not be rewarded. Third, the Bush Administration should be holding Sudan accountable for failing to implement significant aspects of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), imperiling the prospects for scheduled multiparty elections in 2009. Finally, Khartoum has yet to fully account for the murder of John Granville, the American citizen and USAID official gunned down on New Year’s Eve.

A grassroots movement of Americans has joined with Congress to push for implementation of the CPA, and to push the Bush Administration to acknowledge that the Government of Sudan has pursued a policy of genocide in Darfur. Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children have been killed in Darfur, and the killing continues to this very day. Meanwhile, lasting peace will not come without implementation of the CPA. The Bush Administration and Congress have imposed sanctions in an effort to change Khartoum’s behavior; to suddenly offer to normalize relations before that change takes place, particularly without close consultation with Congress, makes no sense.

Washington must respond to the ongoing genocide and the ongoing failure to implement the CPA with consistency and strong consequences. For years, the Government of Sudan has thwarted the will of the United States and the international community, and offended the standards of our common humanity. Before we improve our relationship with the Government of Sudan, conditions must improve for the Sudanese people. We cannot stand down – we must continue to stand up for peace and human rights.

The official statement can be read at Barack Obama’s campaign website.

AT THE SUDAN-CHAD BORDER — The rebels call it a base, but it is really nothing more than a dry riverbed, punctuated by the occasional knot of pickup trucks with gun mounts parked in the soft sand.

This borderline has so little relevance that the fighters camped out here, some of them just boys, cannot say for sure which country they are in. And yet they sit on a deadly tinderbox, foot soldiers in a proxy war involving two of Africa’s most divided and unstable nations, with more than two million of the world’s most vulnerable people caught in between.

As the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan has raged for five years, it has also engulfed Chad. About 200,000 refugees have fled into the borderlands, chased by Arab militias and government troops and setting off ethnic battles that echo those in Darfur.

The crisis continues to draw closer to outright confrontation between Chad and Sudan. Political analysts, diplomats and even the combatants acknowledge that both sides are supporting and arming rebellions on each other’s soil.

Last week the chief peace negotiator for Darfur said that tensions between the countries were a major obstacle to ending the conflict, which has pushed more than two million people from their homes. At least 200,000 people have died as a result of violence, disease and hunger.

“It is a war, but a kind of cold war,” said Timan Erdimi, leader of one of the Chadian rebel groups, in a rare interview last month at his base along the border. “We get support from Sudan because they share our aim: to remove the tyrant Idriss Déby,” Chad’s president.

Close to a dozen Chadian rebel groups operate in this arid no man’s land. Each says it will use its guns and rockets to bring freedom and development to Chad, an oil-rich nation that is nonetheless one of the world’s poorest and least developed countries.

But most of the rebel groups are based on ethnicity, not ideology, and led by figures well known in Chad’s violent past. The country has suffered decades of civil war and authoritarian rule since it won independence from France in 1960.

The most powerful group, the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development, is led by Mahamat Nouri, a top lieutenant of Hissène Habré, a brutal dictator from the Goran ethnic group who was toppled in 1990 and is awaiting trial on international charges of torture and murder.

Mr. Erdimi’s faction is made up largely of disgruntled kinsmen of Mr. Déby’s Zaghawa ethnic group. Some of them are close relatives of the president; Mr. Erdimi is Mr. Déby’s nephew.

This loose rebel coalition very nearly managed to dislodge Mr. Déby, a former general who seized power from Mr. Habré, in an offensive that almost reached the palace gates in early February. But the fighters were forced to turn back amid bickering over who would take power once Mr. Déby had been ousted.

“We agreed that we wanted Déby gone, but we couldn’t agree on a political plan for the country,” Mr. Erdimi said. “So we had to retreat and regroup.”

There is little doubt they will try again — officials in Chad last week said rebel troops were massing once again on the border, preparing for a new strike.

But the troubles between Chad and Sudan reach back even further, long before the Darfur crisis. Sudan has been meddling in Chad’s autocratic governments for decades through secret deals and treachery, a litany of subterfuge that has left both countries ever poorer and more chaotic.

Mr. Déby, who used Darfur as a rear base in his drive for power, has had a friendly relationship with Sudan for much of his nearly 18-year rule. It was not until well into the Darfur conflict that threats from within his family, members of which heavily supported some Darfur rebel factions, caused him to switch sides. Mr. Déby has clan links with the leaders of one of the most prominent Darfur rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement.

Over time rebels from an alphabet soup of rebel groups in Darfur were allowed to operate freely in Chad, setting up bases, recruiting in the vast refugee camps and openly roaming streets in eastern Chad.

On the surface, tensions between Chad and Sudan appeared to have cooled in recent months. The two countries signed a peace accord in March at an Islamic conference in Senegal, pushed to the table by Senegal’s president, Abdoulaye Wade. Each side was reluctant. Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, did not show up on schedule to sign the accord, complaining of a headache. He did sign it the next day, but the apparent slight dampened hopes that the agreement would differ from previous pacts, which had been broken repeatedly.

Predictably, the relationship has soured again in recent days. Last week, Chad’s minister of defense, Mahamat Ali Abdallah, accused Sudan of “massing, training and heavily arming thousands of its mercenaries on Chad’s eastern frontier to launch attacks in the next few days,” Agence France-Presse reported.

Sudanese officials deny any involvement with the Chadian rebels, but the ease and openness with which the fighters operate on Sudanese territory belie those denials. The Small Arms Survey, an independent research institution in Switzerland, said in February that Chadian rebel factions appeared to have received rocket launchers and antitank and antiaircraft missiles from Sudan.

Any claims that the Sudanese government was not aware of, and did not condone the presence of, Chadian rebels in its territory dissolve in Geneina, the capital of West Darfur State, where Chadian rebels drive the streets in their camouflaged trucks and sip tea in cafes in their fatigues.

A recent visit by a reporter and photographer from The New York Times to the base of one group revealed local cooperation, if not outright collaboration. A satellite telephone call from a senior rebel leader was all it took to get past military checkpoints usually impregnable by Western reporters.

Mr. Erdimi said his rebel movement received “logistical support” from Sudan’s government, which included food, fuel, medical treatment for their wounded and permission to operate freely in Sudanese territory. But he denied that the Sudanese government had supplied his men with any vehicles or weapons.

“In Darfur, arms are like sticks,” said Ibrahim Hassan, the 29-year-old son of Mr. Erdimi who is also one of his father’s lieutenants. “They are everywhere. You just need to bend down and pick one up.”

The camp boasts an impressive array of hardware — truck-mounted rocket launchers, grenade launchers and machine guns.

Placing a palm on the unscuffed barrel of a 122-millimeter rocket launcher, Mr. Hassan smiled and said, “Idriss gave us this,” referring to Mr. Déby, from whose army the rebels say they captured the weapon.

The rebel groups strung out along the border between these countries have been portrayed as pawns of Sudan. And fears that a pro-Sudanese government could seize power in the Chadian capital, Ndjamena, have led much of the world to stick by Mr. Déby, despite the increasing repressiveness of his rule.

In the aftermath of the coup attempt, several opposition politicians were arrested, and one is still missing. Many pro-democracy and human rights advocates have fled to neighboring Cameroon and beyond.

While Chad is technically a democracy, its presidential elections have been perfunctory affairs in which Mr. Déby won a huge majority in polls marred by serious irregularities. In 2005 the Constitution was amended to lift term limits.

Mr. Erdimi and other rebel leaders blame the international community for allowing Mr. Déby to portray himself as the protector of Darfur.

“We are not instruments of Sudan,” Mr. Erdimi said. “We have no interest in harming a single Darfur refugee or getting involved in the problems of Darfur. We are only interested in changing the political system in our country.”

Jérôme Tubiana, an independent researcher who has written widely on Chad and Darfur, said that while the rebels lack unity and a coherent political plan for Chad, the international community should not give Mr. Déby a free pass in Chad for the sake of Darfur.

“Can you really tell the Chadian people, ‘O.K., guys, you are very nice and you probably deserve democracy but please wait until we solve the Darfur conflict?’ ” Mr. Tubiana said. “Maybe the Darfur conflict will last 20 years.”

President Bush seems genuinely troubled by the slaughter in Darfur and has periodically suggested to Condoleezza Rice: Why can’t we just send troops in and take care of it? Each time, Ms. Rice patiently explains: You can’t invade a third Muslim country, especially one with oil. And so Mr. Bush backs off and does nothing.

But this week marks the 14th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide — the last time we said “never again.” And while Ms. Rice is right that we can’t send in American ground troops, there are concrete steps that President Bush can take if he wants to end his shameful passivity:

1. Work with France to end the proxy war between Sudan and Chad and to keep Sudan from invading Chad and toppling its government. Stopping the Darfur virus from infecting the surrounding countries must be a top priority. And even if the West lacks the gumption to do much within Sudan, it should at least try to block the spread of genocide to the entire region.

France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is leading the way in providing a European force to stabilize Chad and Central African Republic, and we should back him strongly. If Sudan dispatches additional proxy troops, France and the U.S. should use aircraft to strafe the invaders. But we should also push Chad’s repressive president to accommodate his domestic opponents rather than imprison them.

2. Broaden the focus from “save Darfur” to “save Sudan.” There is a growing risk that the war between North and South Sudan will resume in the coming months and that Sudan will shatter into pieces. The U.S. should try to shore up the fraying north-south peace agreement and urgently help South Sudan with an anti-aircraft capability, to deter Khartoum from striking the South.

3. Right before or after this summer’s G-8 summit, President Bush should convene an international conference on Sudan, inviting among others Mr. Sarkozy, Gordon Brown of Britain, Hu Jintao of China, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Sudanese leaders themselves. The conference should be convened in Kigali, Rwanda, so that participants can reflect on the historical resonance of genocide.

One aim would be to pressure China to suspend arms transfers to Sudan until it seriously pursues peace in Darfur (we’ll get further by treating China as important rather than as evil). Such an arms suspension would be the single best way to induce Sudan to make concessions needed to achieve peace. The conference would also focus on supporting the U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur with helicopters, training and equipment.

4. The conference should aim to restart a Darfur peace process, because the only way the slaughter will truly end is with a peace agreement. A prominent figure like Kofi Annan should lead the talks, working full time and with a first-rate staff to crack heads of Sudanese officials and rebel leaders alike.

5. The U.N. and U.S. should take South Sudan up on its offers in 2004 and 2005 to provide up to 10,000 peacekeepers for Darfur. South Sudanese peacekeepers wouldn’t need visas or interpreters. They can simply walk to Darfur from their present positions, and they would make a huge difference in security.

6. The U.S. should impose a no-fly zone over Darfur from the air base in Abeche, Chad (or even from our existing base in Djibouti). We wouldn’t keep planes in the air or shoot down Sudanese aircraft. Rather, the next time Sudan breaches the U.N. ban on offensive military flights, we would wait a day or two and then destroy a Sudanese Antonov bomber on the ground.

Aid groups mostly oppose this approach for fear that Sudan would respond by cutting off humanitarian access, and that’s a legitimate concern. We should warn Sudan that any such behavior would lead it to lose other aircraft. Sudan’s leaders are practical and covet their planes.

7. We should warn Sudan that if it provokes a war with the South, attacks camps for displaced people or invades a neighboring country, we will destroy its air force. As Roger Winter, a longtime Sudan expert, puts it: “They act when they are credibly threatened. They don’t react when we throw snow at them.”

8. The central reason for our failure in Sudan is that we haven’t proffered meaningful sticks or carrots. A no-fly zone is a stick, but we also should reiterate that if President Omar al-Bashir seeks peace in Darfur and South Sudan, then the U.S. will normalize relations, lift sanctions and take Sudan off the list of nations that sponsor terrorism.

If President Bush takes all these steps, will they succeed in ending the genocide? We don’t know, but pretending that there is nothing more that we can do is as dishonest as it is disgraceful.

UPDATE FROM NICK KRISTOF’S BLOG

I had an interesting response to Thursday’s column, about practical steps forward for Darfur, from Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, the representative of the Government of Southern Sudan in the U.S. Here are some excerpts:

Our Late Hero Dr. John Garang de Mabior, first proposed the provision of 10,000 SPLA troops in 2004 to the then UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan. Furthermore, General Salva Kiir Mayardit, the First Vice President of the Republic of Sudan, President of Southern Sudan, in the beginning of his incumbency also made the same proposal. The Government of Southern Sudan and the SPLA are committed to peacekeeping as well as peacemaking in Darfur. The proposal still stands and is awaiting acceptance by UN….

So it sounds as if the offer of 10,000 soldiers for peacekeeping in Darfur is still plausible, and the international community should take that up. It would make a huge difference if 10,000 Sudanese troops could walk into Darfur and establish security, while speaking the language and knowing the culture. Khartoum would hate the idea, but it has no standing to try to block South Sudan soldiers who could help stabilize Darfur.

So we have a way forward: Accept South Sudan’s offer for 10,000 troops to serve as peacekeepers in Darfur.

KHARTOUM – Sudan’s census has been postponed until end-year because the forms had no questions on religion and ethnicity and to allow millions of southern Sudanese to return home, a southern minister said on Saturday.

The census, due to be held from April 15 to 30, was agreed under a 2005 north-south peace deal which ended Africa’s longest civil war. It will help decide power- and wealth-sharing and set constituencies for the first democratic elections in 23 years.

“It was postponed,” South Sudanese Information Minister Gabriel Changson Chang told Reuters from Juba. “There is a sizeable number of southern Sudanese in northern Sudan and if they are not transported to the south before the census it will … affect the wealth sharing.”

Questions on ethnicity and religion were not included in the census questionnaire, contrary to the semi-autonomous southern government’s wishes, and the north-south border has still not been demarcated, he added.

Chang said the census had been postponed to the end of the year. The rainy season begins in May and much of Sudan will be out of reach by road until October.

The former southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) signed the 2005 accord with the northern National Congress Party (NCP) but the road to peace has not been smooth.

NCP officials were not immediately available to comment.

The SPLM withdrew from the national coalition government last year in protest at the NCP’s foot-dragging on issues such as the census and changing laws to reflect democratic progress.

Since then mutual distrust has increased and little progress has been made on topics like the status of central oil-rich Abyei, claimed by both sides. The north-south border crosses oilfields producing some 500,000 barrels per day of crude.

The delay in the census puts time pressure on elections due next year, said one diplomatic source. The elections law is still in dispute and laws governing control of state media and the role of the police and national security services have yet to be passed.

To see a video clip about this story, please click here.

JUBA, Sudan – In the midst of a revolution, Sudanese rebel chiefs chose two boys – a soldier and a goat herder – to join a group of several hundred who were being sent abroad to become part of their nation’s next generation of leaders.

The boys were taken from a rebel base and a refugee camp in 1986 and sent on an odyssey where their fates were tied to both their civil war and the Cold War. They expected their education to last two or three years, but the civil war dragged on and on. Only now, 20 years later, have they finally come home.

Trained as physicians, they have chosen to leave Canada and the only life they have known as grown-ups to return to their homeland, which has only 50 doctors for 10 million people.

“My body was in the west, but always, my mind and my heart were here,” Daniel Madit Duop said as he looked out over the White Nile on his first full day back home since he was 13. “It is time for us to complete our mission.”

Duop remembers watching helplessly as his mother died during childbirth in 1983. It was then, at the age of 11, that he decided he wanted to be a doctor.

Soon after, Sudan’s leaders declared that the country would be ruled by Islamic law. Southern Sudanese, who are mostly Christians, took up arms as the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. More than 2.5 million people would die, mostly from war-induced famine and disease, before the two sides made peace in 2004.

Duop’s father was among the first to join the rebellion. He entrusted his only son to SPLA leader John Garang and soon Duop was guarding Garang’s headquarters in a village just over the Ethiopian border.

“I was in charge of 50 kids,” he said. “We saw our friends and others going to the front line, sometimes 200 going and sometimes only 10 coming back, b loody and wounded.”

He spoke with a soft voice and a fixed stare, but then tears welled up.

“We forgot about toys, we forgot about everything,” he said. “Our only toy was a Chinese (-made) Kalashnikov rifle.”

His partner in the odyssey was Michael Tut Pur. Before the war he had spent his days happily herding goats. He loved the responsibility, keeping the goats away from the crops and caring for their young. Then government soldiers attacked his village and killed three of his aunts. He and a fourth aunt fled in the night.

“We had to go along the banks of the Nile River . . . some people were killed by crocodiles,” said Pur, a slight and erudite man who was then just 10 years old.

After walking for a week, they found safety in a crowded camp filled with people who had lost everything but what they could carry. Later his father and mother would join him. Aid workers brought the refugees maize and set up schools for the children, but the water was foul and sanitation nonexistent.

“It was not a suitable place to live,” Pur said, with a grim smile.

In 1985, Cuban military advisers arrived to help the rebels, and the SPLA embraced Marxism. Cuban troops were already in Angola, Ethiopia and Mozambique, all battlegrounds in the Cold War struggle for Africa.

Duop vividly remembers the day Garang told him he was going to Cuba to be groomed for leadership. He gave the boy a pencil and told him to put down his rifle.

“He said, `This pencil is your gun right now. If you do something with this pencil, you have won your battle,’” Duop said.

Pur was given just one night to prepare for the journey. He spent it with his father, Peter.

“He gave me a Bible and said, `This Bible is going to be your mother and your father, read it every day,’” Pur said. Peter then read from Matthew: “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

The rebels recruited about 1,000 children for the program. Cuban teachers at a rebel camp taught them Spanish. Then Salva Kiir, second-in-command of the SPLA, gave the top 600 students tickets on a Soviet ship bound for Cuba.

When they arrived, they relished the joys of running water and electricity. But they missed their families and Sudanese food. They never forgot why they had left.

“I would always think, I must study hard, I must work hard, I must complete the mission,” Pur said.

He made friends with teens from other communist countries and spent weekends at the beach.

Duop, meanwhile, became a student leader. He played on a Sudanese team that won an international basketball championship. Remembering his mother’s death, he vowed to become a doctor and graduated at the top of his high school class in 1991.

But the Soviet Union had collapsed and so had its subsidies for Cuba, causing widespread food shortages and unemployment.

“It was a big blow,” said Pur.

But the Cubans allowed the Sudanese to finish their education. The first group of graduates went back home in 1993.

“When they arrived back in Uganda and Kenya, nobody received them, nobody looked after them,” Duop said, still bitter at the betrayal. “Some went to the SPLA and a lot of them were killed (in battle). When the Cuban government learned of what was happening, they stopped sending people back. They said it was a waste of resources.”

In 1995, Cuba asked the United Nations to grant all of the Sudanese students refugee status. Canada agreed to resettle them and most became citizens there. Duop and Pur arrived in 2001. But their Cuban medical degrees did not qualify them to practice medicine in Canada. Duop ended up working at a meatpacking plant and Pur as an assistant physical therapist.

The Canadian winters were hard, and not practicing medicine was harder. They wanted to complete their mission. In late 2004, Sudan’s civil war ended and Duop and Pur saw their chance.

An SPLA leader in Kenya told Duop by telephone about Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian relief organization that was one of the largest medical providers in southern Sudan.

Duop contacted John Clayton, projects director at Samaritan’s Purse Canada, who contacted the University of Calgary medical school. They agreed to create a one-year refresher course to prepare Duop, Pur and 13 other Cuban-educated Sudanese doctors to return home.

Samaritan’s Purse also arranged for a one-year residency at hospitals in Kenya where the doctors could specialize in tropical medicine. Duop, Pur and the others finished their course in Canada and flew to Nairobi, Kenya on Oct. 5.

They were back in Africa for the first time in 20 years.

Standing at the arrivals gate in Nairobi, Peter Tut Pur, now a preacher in Kenya, waited anxiously for the son he had expected to be away no longer than two or three years.

“I gave him the Bible and the hymn book in his mother tongue. I didn’t want him to forget his mother tongue.”

They had lost touch for much of the last 20 years but had recently communicated by telephone and e-mail. When Michael emerged, his father raced to him and they embraced for the first time since the night in the refugee camp.

“This is the greatest moment,” the father said. “I have waited too long.”

The next morning, the doctors boarded planes for Juba. Dressed in their finest suits, they stirred nervously and cheered when they crossed into Sudanese airspace.

When Pur stepped off the plane in Juba, he dropped to his knees and kissed the ground. Duop stepped off the stairs weeping as SPLA members cheered, waved the South Sudan flag and sang SPLA songs.

Leaders in South Sudan’s autonomous government welcomed the young doctors as long lost children.

“Fifteen medical doctors all at once is something fantastic,” said Dr. Theophilus Chang Lotti, the south’s minister of health.

The doctors went from the airport to honor Garang, who died in a helicopter crash last year.

“We are coming home today to pay our respects to the people who gave their lives in our struggle. While we were studying, they were suffering,” Duop said at Garang’s tomb. “Who will take care of those children who lost their fathers in the war, who will take care of those women who lost their husbands in the war? If not us, who?”

As Duop signed the condolence book, a group of children stopped to watch. Duop asked a shoeless 12-year-old Emmanuel Bidal about school, and Bidal showed him his tattered notebook. Duop remembered himself at that age.

“Children have to be children,” he said. “They have to carry pencils and toys, not guns.”

But Duop also said he missed Garang.

“I expected to come back and say, `Hey commander, I’m here to complete my mission,’” Duop said. But instead, Duop met the man who had handed him his ticket so many years ago, Salva Kiir, now president of South Sudan.

Kiir recalled accusations in 1986 that he and Garang were selling the children for guns.

We were “creating the leadership of the future,” Kiir told the doctors. “South Sudan has to be built from zero and this is the mission that we left with you . . . development is much more difficult than war.”

Duop and Pur said they are up to the challenge.

“I know there is nothing in southern Sudan, but my personal difficulties are less than the difficulties our people are facing,” Duop said. “I would be happy if I saved one woman from dying during childbirth.”

The doctors will take up posts scattered across southern Sudan. Their first job will be restoring dilapidated clinics or building new ones. They will practice medicine in places without electricity or clean water, where there are no blood banks and drug deliveries are unpredictable.

Pur said he could no longer watch images of suffering in Africa and do nothing.

“I didn’t pay for this education,” he said. “It was free, so I must pay back freely.”

This story by Chris Thomlinson was originally published by the Associate Press on November 27, 2006. For more information about Samaritan’s Purse Canada, please click here.

Sudan’s National Islamic Front regime has begun its sixth year of genocidal counterinsurgency warfare in the vast western region of Darfur, targeting African civilian populations perceived as the primary support for fractious rebel groups. Given the length of the conflict, news reports have inevitably taken on a grimly familiar and repetitive character that obscures the impending cataclysm of human destruction.

Without significant improvement in security on the ground — for civilians and the humanitarians upon whom they increasingly depend — deaths in the coming months will reach a staggering total. What Khartoum was unable to accomplish with the massive violence of 2003-04, entailing wholesale destruction of African villages, will be achieved through a “genocide by attrition.” Civilians displaced into camps or surviving precariously in rural areas will face unprecedented shortfalls in humanitarian assistance, primarily food and potable water.

A recent U.N. map indicating aid access throughout Darfur shows that a large majority of people in the region are in areas with highly limited humanitarian access or none at all. The consensus among nongovernmental aid organizations is that they have access to only 40 percent of the population in need; 2.5 million of the 4.3 million Darfuris affected by conflict — primarily women and children — can’t be securely reached by those attempting to provide food, clean water, shelter and primary medical care.

And things are poised to get much worse.

Paralyzing seasonal rains begin in earnest in June throughout the region. In eastern Chad, an obscenely underreported humanitarian crisis has put half a million Darfuri refugees and Chadian displaced persons at acute risk because of insecurity spilling over from Darfur. A European Union force deploying to eastern Chad may provide some of the protection necessary to halt the most threatening violence, but much depends on whether the force is perceived as an extension of a long-term French military presence that has supported Chadian President Idriss Déby.

In Darfur itself, however, the protection force authorized by the U.N. Security Council last July has stalled badly. Little more than a slightly augmented version of the African Union mission, it risks failing soon if it cannot do much better than its weak and undermanned predecessor. Khartoum refuses to accept key contingents from non-African countries and obstructs force deployment and operations in a range of ways. Indeed, nothing contributes more to what Human Rights Watch recently described as “chaos by design.” While a variety of rebel groups, bandits and opportunistic armed elements contribute to the violence that threatens humanitarians, Khartoum has invested virtually nothing in providing security for Darfuris or humanitarians. On the contrary, reports from the field make clear that a climate of hostility, obstruction and abuse defines the working environment for all aid organizations. Khartoum still refuses to disarm its brutal Arab militia forces, the Janjaweed. Recently, in a campaign reminiscent of the worst military violence of the genocide’s early years, Khartoum’s regular ground and air forces coordinated with the Janjaweed in massive scorched-earth assaults against civilian villages in West Darfur.

But it is the onset of this year’s heavy rains that may well mark the tipping point. A great many people weakened by five years of conflict and deprivation won’t make it through the traditional “hunger gap” — the period between spring planting and fall harvest. Last fall’s harvests were disastrous, especially in North and South Darfur. Food reserves have never been lower, and because of insecurity the U.N. World Food Program has not been able to position adequate food stocks in the areas least accessible during the rainy season. Once the rains come — severing road corridors, turning dry river beds into impassable torrents and creating a terrain of mud — it will be almost impossible to move in many areas. The insecurity preventing humanitarian access will give way to sheer physical impossibility.

The international community has waited far too long to come to terms with the brutal motives behind Khartoum’s simultaneous blocking of a U.N.-authorized protection force and its unconstrained harassment of humanitarian operations. Nothing short of the most urgent deployment of security forces will allow food to be moved into areas of greatest need. And nothing less than an equally urgent commitment to protect aid operations will permit an expanded humanitarian reach in the critical three months before the start of the rainy season. If Khartoum is not confronted over its deadly policies of fostering insecurity while obstructing humanitarian operations, then we may measure the consequences in hundreds of thousands of lives lost. The choice is before us now.

KHARTOUM, SUDAN — Darfur’s long-hobbled peace process has all but collapsed, principals here say, raising questions about the viability of a new U.N. peacekeeping force and the future of an international aid campaign approaching its sixth year.

Since a much-hyped Libyan peace conference fell apart last fall, a joint U.N.-African Union mediation effort has reported little progress in reaching a resolution or even getting players to the negotiating table.

“You hear nothing from them anymore,” said Sudanese political analyst Safwat Fanous, head of University of Khartoum’s political science department, about the mediators. “I think they’ve given up. There are no peace negotiations in the pipeline.”

A chief negotiator said the peace effort was still alive, but would soon undergo an overhaul, including the appointment of a new top envoy and adoption of a streamlined agenda.

“No doubt the peace process is in serious trouble,” said Sam Ibok, the lead African Union mediator. “It’s not going anywhere.”

He said participants, including the Sudanese government and rebel movements, had lost confidence in the process and remained unable to overcome their mutual distrust. Both sides also suffer from internal divisions. The rebels have fractured into more than 20 groups, and the Arab-dominated administration of President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir has failed to formulate a clear Darfur strategy in conjunction with its power-sharing partner, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM.

U.N. special envoy Jan Eliasson and his AU counterpart, Salim Ahmed Salim, whose joint leadership has come under fire, will soon be replaced by a single chief, Ibok said. In an effort to break the stalemate, future talks will focus on a short list of urgent issues, such as security, victim compensation and power-sharing, he said.

The stalemate comes amid a recent renewal of hostilities in some parts of Darfur, where violence and killings had significantly declined over the last two years.

Some worry that both sides are reverting to old habits in the conflict, which began in 2003 when Darfur rebels clashed with Sudanese forces and their allied militias. An estimated 200,000 people have died, mostly of disease and hunger.

After a December offensive by the rebel group Justice and Equality Movement in West Darfur, the Sudanese military in early February bombed three cities, killing more than 100 people and causing more than 50,000 to flee. Rebels accused the government of additional bomb attacks last week, local media reported.

Government officials denied attacking civilians. They blamed the international community for failing to pressure rebel groups to join the peace process, noting that several rebel leaders boycotted October’s Libya talks.

“We are disappointed in the international community,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Ali Sadiq. “We still have no road map.”

Humanitarian groups in Darfur, where the world is spending nearly $1 billion a year in aid and an additional $2.5 billion for peacekeepers, say the lack of progress threatens their efforts, particularly if donors turn to other world emergencies.

“Darfur is pretty high profile,” said Kenro Oshidari, country director in Sudan for the World Food Program. “But it’s been going on for five years. I don’t think it’s sustainable.”

The peacekeeping mission is also at risk because its primary mandate is to enforce a peace deal that is nowhere on the horizon.

The latest complication is next year’s planned national election. Rebels insist Darfur is too unstable to hold a vote, noting that more than 2.5 million people have been displaced. Since the region accounts for as much as one-fifth of Sudan’s population, they say balloting should not proceed. Many groups are threatening to block election efforts by force.

“We are not going to let the census or election take place,” said Tahir Elfaki, a Justice and Equality Movement official in London. “We have the means to do this. We are fighters.”

Political experts said rebel groups might also be concerned that they stand to lose power in a vote, particularly since most are unprepared for a political campaign, which would require that they transform their armies into parties.

“They’d be defeated,” said former Sudanese Prime Minister Sadek Mahdi, now head of the opposition Umma Party, which won the majority of Darfur votes in the last free election in 1986. “They have support for their cause, but not much political support. After an election, they wouldn’t have the same prominence.”

Mahdi’s party has threatened to boycott the national election if Darfur doesn’t participate, as some government officials have suggested. “Darfur has to be resolved before an election,” he said.

Hassan Turabi, another opposition leader and head of the Popular Congress party, said impending elections might help rejuvenate peace talks, particularly if the government concludes it will be unable to exclude the restive region from voting.

“Then they may become a little more conciliatory and go for a settlement,” he said. “The government is so unpopular in Darfur. They need to do something to moderate their unpopularity.”

Concerns that Darfur might contribute to a delay in the election have pushed the SPLM to take a more active role. Party leader Salva Kiir is expected to make his first tour of the region, and SPLM leaders are preparing their own peace initiative.

“For us the election is an incentive to resolve Darfur,” said Pagan Amum, the party’s secretary-general. He said the SPLM also views Darfur as an electoral prize that could help it win a presidential race. “We think we’ll have sizable support there,” he said.

But the African Union’s Ibok warned that Darfur was not ready for elections because conditions did not allow for the emergence of new Darfur-based political parties and candidates. He said he feared election preparations would overshadow peace talks. “It would be a distraction, which is something we don’t need.”

In southern Sudan, thousands of families displaced by the recent armed conflict in the oil-rich region of Abyei are in need of emergency assistance. This is occurring in a region where resources are already extremely depleted. Gabriel Trujillo, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) program manager in Sudan, is concerned about the lack of mobilization on the part of humanitarian agencies in Northern Bahr-el-Ghazal state.
(more…)

More than 100,000 refugees from South Sudan have returned home to restart their lives since UNHCR began its organised repatriation programme in December 2005. The 100,000 milestone was passed this week as the pace of return convoys picked up from countries neighbouring South Sudan to get refugees home ahead of the rainy season in May, and for those who want to return for the national census on 5-30 April.

We are now helping some 4,500 refugees return each week to South Sudan – an increase from 3,000 a fortnight ago. By mid-April that figure is expected to jump to 6,000 returnees a week as we increase transport for returnees from Uganda and Ethiopia.

The largest number of refugees is returning from Uganda, with some 2,700 returnees a week. Most of the convoys from Uganda enter South Sudan through the Nimule corridor – one of the 18 land and air routes we are using to bring refugees back home.

From Kenya , the area that refugees are returning to has been expanded with return flights from Kakuma refugee camp in north-west Kenya now also going to Lakes, Warrab, Unity, Northern and Western Bahr el Ghazal States in Sudan. More than 5,000 refugees have returned from Kakuma this year, with another 2,000 expected to go home in April.

Returns from Ethiopia – which has some 35,000 refugees from South Sudan in three camps – are expected to result in the closure of two camps. Returns resumed at the end of last month and are now running at the rate of 1,200 returnees a week. This should lead to the closure in April of Bonga, a camp of some 2,300 refugees in the Gambella region of western Ethiopia. In Sherkole, further north, most of the 6,800 refugees there have expressed a wish to return to their homes in the Upper Nile region. It is expected they will have returned by the end of May. More than 8,000 refugees from Dimma and Fugnido camps are also expected to return in April and May this year, leading to the closure of Dimma, a camp of some 2,600.

The return movements are being organised in collaboration with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the German agency GTZ, refugee host governments and the government of Southern Sudan.

In February, UNHCR launched an appeal for US$63 million to fund our 2008 operations in Southern Sudan, including organising the voluntary return and reintegration of Sudanese refugees.

In all, a total of 251,000 refugees have returned to Sudan – 100,000 in organised repatriations and the rest on their own – since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in January 2005 that ended 21 years of civil war between the north and the south of the country. Some 260,000 Sudanese refugees remain outside Sudan’s borders.

Ending the catastrophe in Darfur requires international protection for civilians, a peace agreement that resolves the underlying political issues, and accountability for human rights abuses. Complete humanitarian access must also be assured. To achieve any of these goals, there must be meaningful consequences for individuals who impede efforts at protection, peacemaking, and humanitarian access. The deployment of an international civilian protection force, authorized last July by the UN Security Council, is moving ahead fitfully in the face of constant obstruction by the Sudanese government (and gross inattention by the Security Council to the pressing needs of the mission). While full and effective deployment of that force is necessary to save lives, it ultimately will prove insufficient unless it is accompanied by a viable peace process. Unfortunately, the current peace process is in shambles.

This paper outlines the urgent steps that must be taken to create a peace to keep in Darfur.[1] ENOUGH and the Save Darfur Coalition have identified these steps through our field work, our consultations with key actors, and our own experience with peace processes in Sudan and elsewhere.[2] In particular, we draw on the model used to negotiate the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the decades-long war in southern Sudan.

Appoint a single, empowered mediator.

One strong lead mediator must replace the dual AU and UN special envoys—Salim Ahmed Salim for the African Union and Jan Eliasson for the United Nations—who jointly and uneasily lead the process now. A single mediator is necessary, because a diffusion of responsibility leads inevitably to a diffusion of effectiveness. The single mediator should have substantial negotiation experience, particularly in Africa, and preferably in Sudan. The mediator must be fully empowered to drive the process and must be supported by a full-time team with expertise in all of the relevant issues under negotiation. The efforts of such a single, empowered mediator were crucial to the success of the negotiations that resulted in the CPA.

Support the mediator with coordinated international leverage.

But no mediator, however skilled, will succeed in isolation. For example, the CPA’s Kenyan mediator was backed by a “troika” of countries—the United States, the United Kingdom, and Norway—that had influence over the parties that the mediator did not have.[3] The manner in which the Troika’s coordinated leverage supported the mediation to end the conflict in southern Sudan provides a general blueprint for success in Darfur. Indeed, real leverage has been glaringly absent since the beginning of the Darfur crisis. A coordinated international effort to back up the mediator with clear and focused incentives for and pressures on all key actors is essential to give peace a chance.

ENOUGH, the Save Darfur Coalition, and the Genocide Intervention Network have proposed a “Quartet” of the countries that have the most external leverage: China, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Each of these countries has particular, limited leverage in Sudan. But combined, their leverage and influence can be decisive. The Quartet should consult closely with—and in some cases apply pressure to—regional states with interests in Darfur and Sudan, including Egypt, Libya, Chad, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Saudi Arabia, and work with key AU states, such as South Africa.

Effective diplomacy cannot be bought on the cheap. A serious effort to address the Darfur catastrophe requires each of the Quartet countries to dedicate full-time staff in the region to continuously engage the warring parties and regional states while supporting the work of the lead mediator. In the case of the United States, President Bush’s Special Envoy, Richard Williamson, should have two full-time deputies working the Darfur and CPA issues as well as a field-based team with personnel in Khartoum, Chad, and Juba. Additionally, the French government, working closely with China and the United States, should invest more through the European Union in diplomatic efforts to resolve the political crisis in Chad.[4] The mediator and Quartet must also include the proxy war between Sudan and Chad in their approach.

Even a well-resourced Quartet effort is unlikely to succeed if it sets up a peace process divorced from a commitment to peace enforcement. Throughout the five years that this conflict has raged on, virtually no multilateral costs have been imposed on the individuals most responsible for violence targeting civilians or for obstructing humanitarian relief efforts. The UN Security Council—driven by the Quartet, each of whom is a permanent member—must impose consequences in the form of targeted sanctions on key individuals, a comprehensive arms embargo, and additional support to the International Criminal Court. Quite simply, those who are most responsible for the crisis, including top officials in the Sudanese government, must bear a cost for promoting destruction and obstruction—a cost that outweighs the benefits they have been enjoying. No peace process can succeed that is isolated from the urgency of protecting civilians and ensuring humanitarian access.

Address the Darfur conflict in its local and national contexts.

A successful peace agreement must effectively address the local and national contexts of the conflict. In particular, the Darfur conflict cannot be resolved without resolving the vital issues of wealth and power distribution in Sudan.

Local Darfur context.

After multiple failed peace efforts and meandering consultations, the issues at stake in Darfur are fairly well understood. Any final agreement will have to address the following:[5]

A substantial sum for individual compensation to be paid by the government

International monitoring of a cessation of all forms of state support for the janjaweed militia structure

International monitoring and support for encampment of all forces in Darfur (government, rebel, and militia)

Administrative arrangements for Darfur

Power sharing for Darfurian constituencies[6]

A comprehensive plan to address the humanitarian, livelihoods, environmental, and development challenges that Darfur will face in the aftermath of the conflict

The lead envoy should jump-start the process by producing a comprehensive draft agreement that addresses these core issues. But the draft will only help move the process forward if it is—and is seen to be—reflective of the needs and interests of stakeholders, rather than a third party position.

The draft should therefore be circulated to key constituencies for peace, including traditional leaders and community leaders in camps for internally displaced persons and refugees, Darfurian civil society groups, women’s organizations, political parties, and diaspora organizations such as the Darfur Leaders Network.[7] Broadening the peace process is essential to creating a sense of ownership among Darfurians. There will be contentious debates over the specifics of the wealth, power, development, and security arrangements of any robust agreement, so the mediator must establish a formal process—involving envoys from the Quartet as well—to solicit regular feedback from key stakeholders. In particular, it is essential that meaningful input in the negotiation process be decoupled from merely having guns. The previous practice of giving seats at the table to almost any combatant has had the perverse effect of encouraging the factionalization of armed groups and giving armed groups a greater say in determining the future of Darfur than their unarmed counterparts. Moreover, as support for a draft agreement expands, the mediator and the Quartet in cooperation with the civilian protection force must be ready to act decisively to isolate spoilers.

Various rebel factions have refused to participate in previous peace processes for different reasons at different times. One overarching concern stems from the realization that any negotiation is skewed by the much greater negotiation experience and capacity possessed by the Sudanese government. This concern is amplified by the rebels’ keen awareness that the government has mastered the techniques of divide and conquer, accentuating mistrust that already exists among different rebel leaders. Naturally, the personal ambitions of individual rebel leaders also have played a role.

The mediator and Quartet can address these problems in several ways. First, they should make clear that they are committed to a fair outcome, broadly supported in Darfur. Second, any final agreement must include international guarantees that the Quartet and other international actors are committed to fulfilling. Third, a vigorous process of consultation with Darfurian civil society will limit the ability of individual rebel leaders to put their personal ambitions ahead of a broadly acceptable agreement; as such, individual leaders will abstain from the process at their political peril. (As mentioned above, the mediator and Quartet must be prepared to isolate spoilers.) And finally, members of the Quartet can help facilitate capacity building to enhance the ability of Darfurians to negotiate with the central government.[8]

Very soon there will have to be agreement to confidence-building measures that demonstrate a baseline of good faith, especially on the part of the government. One such measure may be a ceasefire. A recent rebel offensive and renewed attacks against civilians by the Sudanese military and allied militia demonstrate that neither side feels any incentive to stop fighting right now. Newly energized diplomacy by an empowered mediator and the Quartet, however, may make an early ceasefire more realistic.

National Sudan context.

If it is to be sustained, any peace agreement for Darfur must also serve as a component of a comprehensive approach to a lasting peace in Sudan. The ruling National Congress Party (NCP) has consistently taken advantage of the international community’s inability to focus on Sudan as a whole. As the international community was mesmerized in 2003 by the possibility of ending the war in southern Sudan, the NCP took the opportunity to carry out its scorched earth campaign of human destruction in Darfur. After the signing of the CPA in January 2005, the NCP saw that the international focus shifted to its crimes against humanity in Darfur, accompanied by haphazard efforts to address that crisis. Not surprisingly, Khartoum took the opportunity to undermine implementation of the CPA, a key component of which is the democratic transformation of all Sudan.[9] The lead mediator and the Quartet must, therefore, include implementation of the CPA in their mandate. Moreover, adjustments to the CPA will inevitably be necessary to ensure equitable access of Darfurians and all Sudanese to national power and wealth, which for far too long have been controlled by a minority elite (and, under the NCP regime, controlled by a minority of that minority).

Conclusion

To date, international actors, including the United States, China, France, and the United Nations, have sought more to manage the Darfur crisis piecemeal rather than solve it completely. Now is the time to appoint an empowered mediator and support that mediator with an international Quartet of powers that have leverage and interests in Sudan. The mediator and Quartet must simultaneously protect humanitarian access, push for full and effective deployment of the UN-AU civilian protection force authorized last July, and vigorously pursue a viable peace process. That peace process must address both the local and national issues that underlie the conflict, ensuring that resolution of the conflict in Darfur complements full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the conflict in southern Sudan and that provides a blueprint for the democratic transformation of the entire country. The problems of Darfur cannot be solved without solving the problems of Sudan and vice-versa. The time has come, finally, to get it right in Sudan. The long-suffering Sudanese people deserve as much.

[1]For regular updates on the status of the peace process for Darfur and implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement for Sudan, see ENOUGH’s Sudan Peace and Democracy Watch.

[2] For more details on some of these proposals and further discussion of the way forward, see ENOUGH’s Strategy Paper #10, “A Strategy for Success in Sirte”. Also see the International Crisis Group’s report on the peace process, “Darfur: Revitalizing the Peace Process”, as well as the report from a Darfur diaspora group and the U.S. Institute of Peace, “Reclaiming Common Ground”, and the Initiative for Inclusive Security’s work on the role of women in peace promotion in Sudan.

[3] Italy was also a crucial player in this effort.

[4] For analysis of the political crisis in Chad, see ENOUGH strategy paper #12, “Is Anyone Serious about Ending the Political Crisis in Chad?” by Colin Thomas-Jensen.

[5] For more detailed discussion of the substance of a deal, see ENOUGH’s Strategy Paper #10, “A Strategy for Success in Sirte”.

[6]The CPA provides the framework for a national political solution; as noted below, Darfurian participation in national power sharing will have to be integrated into the CPA.

[7]The Save Darfur Coalition and the U.S. Institute for Peace separately have sponsored workshops for the Darfur Leaders Network to facilitate the ability of members of the Darfurian diaspora to articulate their needs and interests. The Network is reaching out internationally to create issue-based documents that will be helpful to the peace process.

[8] The immediate good news is that press accounts of dozens of rebel factions are grossly exaggerated. There are basically five significant factions or factional alliances:
the Sudan Liberation Army/Abdel Shafie (SLA/Abdelshafie), an alliance of five factions that attended consultations in Juba, South Sudan, late last year; the SLA/Unity, an alliance led collectively by Suliman Jamous, Adam Shogar, and Sharif Harir; SLA/Abdelwahid, which remains mostly a political actor with minimal military impact in Darfur; the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), led by Khalil Ibrahim; and a JEM faction called JEM Collective Leadership, led by Ibrahim’s former confidant, Bahar Abu Garda. Getting these factions to participate constructively in the process outlined in this paper should not be an insurmountable obstacle, though it will take dedicated diplomacy.

[9] For a discussion of the role of democracy in transforming Sudan, see ENOUGH strategy briefing #10, “Democracy: A Key to Peace in Sudan”.

(This report includes contributions from Omer Ismail, Colin Thomas-Jensen, Amjad Atallah, Amir Osman and Gayle Smith.)

ABU SUROUJ, Sudan — As Darfur smolders in the aftermath of a new government offensive, a long-sought peacekeeping force, expected to be the world’s largest, is in danger of failing even as it begins its mission because of bureaucratic delays, stonewalling by Sudan’s government and reluctance from troop-contributing countries to send peacekeeping forces into an active conflict.

The force, a joint mission of the African Union and the United Nations, officially took over from an overstretched and exhausted African Union force in Darfur on Jan. 1. It now has just over 9,000 of an expected 26,000 soldiers and police officers and will not fully deploy until the end of the year, United Nations officials said.

Even the troops that are in place, the old African Union force and two new battalions, lack essential equipment, like sufficient armored personnel carriers and helicopters, to carry out even the most rudimentary of peacekeeping tasks. Some even had to buy their own paint to turn their green helmets United Nations blue, peacekeepers here said.

The peacekeepers’ work is more essential than ever. At least 30,000 people were displaced last month as the government and its allied militias fought to retake territory held by rebel groups fighting in the region, according to United Nations human rights officials.

For weeks after the attacks, many of the displaced were hiding in the bush nearby or living in the open along the volatile border between Sudan and Chad, inaccessible to aid workers. Most wanted to return to their scorched villages and rebuild but did not feel safe from roaming bandits and militias.

A week spent this month with the peacekeeping troops based here at the headquarters of Sector West, a wind-blown outpost at the heart of the recent violence, revealed a force struggling mightily to do better than its much-maligned predecessor, but with little new manpower or equipment.

Despite this, the force is managing to project a greater sense of security for the tens of thousands of vulnerable civilians in the vast territory it covers, mounting night patrols in displaced people’s camps and sending long-range patrols to the areas hardest hit by fighting. But these small gains are fragile, and if more troops do not arrive soon, the force will be written off as being as ineffective and compromised as the one before.

“We really don’t have much time to prove we can do better,” said Brig. Gen. Balla Keita, the Senegalese commander of the roughly 2,000 troops in West Darfur, just one-third of the expected total for the area.

“God gave the prophets the ability to achieve miracles so that people would believe. So people here will believe when they see improvements on the ground. And that cannot wait for more troops. We need to do better with what we have.”

The deployment of the biggest peacekeeping force in modern history in one of the most remote, hostile and forbidding corners of the globe was bound to be a logistical nightmare. Darfur is landlocked, water is scarce, the roads are rutted tracks crossed by the mud and sand traps of dry riverbeds.

A Troubled Mission

But those problems pale in comparison with the diplomatic and political struggles the mission faces.

When previous large missions were organized in Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the central governments in those countries had collapsed or were so weak that they had little choice but to accept peacekeepers. The government of Sudan agreed to accept United Nations-led peacekeepers in Darfur only after a long diplomatic tussle and under a great deal of pressure.

The progress to get the mission in place has been slow, and much of the blame for this has been placed at the feet of the Sudanese government. For months after the United Nations Security Council approved the force, Sudan insisted on limits on its makeup and independence, demanding the power to dictate which countries contributed troops, to shut down its communication systems when the government carried out offensives and to restrict the movement of peacekeepers at night.

Ultimately, the government signed a compromise agreement with the United Nations allowing the force to operate, but Sudan was successful in insisting that the vast majority of troops come from African countries, and will be supplemented by soldiers from other regions only if suitable African troops cannot be found.

This has delayed the force’s mission, because African armies are not usually able to deploy quickly with equipment and training to meet stringent United Nations standards, United Nations officials and Western diplomats said. Sudanese government officials have argued that African troops are up to the job, and that non-African troops would be seen as neocolonial interlopers.

These problems have raised fears that the United Nations force would suffer the same fate as the African Union force, which was hobbled from the start by a weak mandate, which was to observe a cease-fire, not protect civilians. The thousands of troops deployed by Rwanda, Nigeria, Senegal and other nations were mainly there to protect the military observers, who were unarmed, and the unarmed civilian police, whose job it was to guard the camps for the internally displaced people.

But the original cease-fire was quickly violated, and later agreements failed to bring peace. The African troops soon were seen, perhaps unfairly, as useless note-takers who visited the scene of atrocities long after the evidence had been carried off and the dead buried, gathering testimony that seemed to disappear into a bureaucratic black hole.

A Town in Ruins

All of that has changed with the new hybrid mission. The force has a robust mandate to protect civilians. But that is easier said than done, said Maj. Sani Abdullahi, the man in charge of the single company charged with fending off roaming militias and rebels to protect tens of thousands of displaced villagers in a handful of camps and thousands more vulnerable residents of remote villages.

One Sunday morning, Major Abdullahi, 34, a wiry Nigerian officer who served in peacekeeping operations in Sierra Leone and Liberia, led a few truckloads of troops to visit Abu Sorouj, one of the towns flattened by a recent government offensive in West Darfur.

The town is just a few dozen miles away, but the drive took three bone-crunching hours. Abu Sorouj was attacked nearly a month earlier, and most of the villagers had fled, some to Chad. They said they were blocked by the Chadian authorities from reaching refugee camps. So within days, some were returning, afraid of losing their land if they became long-term displaced people living in camps.

Before the attack, Abu Sorouj was a bustling town of hundreds of mud-brick huts roofed with thatch, clumped together in sprawling family compounds. It had a cinder-block school and clinic supported by a nongovernmental aid agency.

Today, it is an apocalyptic scene of ashy ruin. The residents who have returned salvaged what they could, sifting through the blackened rubble to find cooking pots, bedsteads and buried troves of grain.

Fadila Ahmed Mahamat, a great-grandmother whose legs are withered stalks, sat amid the charred ruins of her home, digging holes in the sand with bare, gnarled hands to construct the frame of a makeshift dwelling out of branches from a pen that had been used to keep sheep.

“Everything is gone,” she said. “I have nothing.”

Surveying the scene, Major Abdullahi let out a low whistle.

“My God,” he said. “Look at this.”

A few of the town’s sheiks remained, and they clamored to tell him their complaints. Arab gunmen, whom the villagers here call janjaweed, roam the edge of town, they told Major Abdullahi, coming at dawn and dusk to steal what little remained here. The women could not go to the river to collect water. The men could not leave the town to find big branches to build shelters.

“We need security,” one said.

“Why don’t you patrol more often?” another asked. “When you come, the janjaweed stay away for two or three days.”

Major Abdullahi told them: “We don’t have the number of troops on ground we need. As soon as we do, we will spread out. We are doing everything we can to make you feel more secure.”

All talk ceased as a pickup truck loaded with government soldiers drove up. An officer jumped out, smiling with an outstretched hand. But his smile was tense, and after some pleasantries he asked why the peacekeepers had come.

“The place is secure,” said the officer, Maj. Amar Ibrahim. “Even the Arabs who ride on camels and horses and harass people, we have patrols to chase them away.”

Major Abdullahi smiled and nodded.

“We really appreciate that and commend your efforts,” he said through an interpreter. “But we really need to ask you to do more. People still do not feel safe.”

Despite the agreement giving the peacekeepers free rein, government troops complain about their presence. Major Abdullahi said he must be careful not to alienate these troops because he must rely on them to help provide security. “The reality is we need to work with them,” he said. “It does no good to antagonize them.”

Major Abdullahi checked his watch. It was noon, and already he had to think about heading back. The armored personnel carriers, which had been provided to the African Union by the Canadian government and had been battered by years of abuse in Darfur’s harsh conditions, were already acting up. Two flat tires and engine trouble had made the journey to Abu Sorouj slow. But he could not risk being stuck on the way back.

He promised the sheiks that he would return soon, but he could not say for sure how soon that might be.

The Task Ahead

It is unclear how exactly the deployment of troops in Darfur can be speeded up, give the built-in constraint that African troops be used first. Western activists concerned about Darfur say the Sudanese government is primarily responsible and have demanded that China, Sudan’s main trading partner and one of its suppliers of weapons, join other countries to press Sudan to allow troops of any origin the troops to deploy quickly.

While the Sudanese government has been blamed for some of the delay, United Nations requirements have also slowed the force, some diplomats and political analysts say.

The deployment “is not principally being delayed by the Sudanese government,” said a senior Western diplomat in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, who is not authorized to speak publicly. Other problems, like the United Nations bureaucracy and the reluctance of troop-contributing countries, were as much to blame, the diplomat said.

There is certainly no lack of money. Rodolphe Adada, of the Congo Republic, the mission’s civilian chief, said the force had a budget of $1.7 billion. What it needs is troops and equipment, and neither has been easy to get. More pressure on the Sudanese government, he said, would not help matters. “What more pressure can be put on the Sudanese government,” he said. “All the decisions have been taken. There is nothing left to say. What we need to do is act.”

Some countries are reluctant to commit troops in an active conflict with no peace agreement or even a working cease-fire.

“The international community had two choices — get a peace accord and deploy the mission after, or send the mission anyway,” Mr. Adada said. “It chose the latter. But how do you keep the peace when there is no peace to keep?”

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan questioned whether all countries on the Security Council have lived up to their responsibility to protect civilians in Darfur from atrocities.

Annan said there was ”quite a bit of hypocrisy on all sides” in trying to resolve the five-year conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region, especially in encouraging the African Union to take on peacekeeping without sufficient resources.

The overwhelmed AU force struggled for years to stem the bloodshed in Darfur until it was replaced by a joint AU-UN force that began deploying in January after months of wrangling with the Sudanese government.

The new force is authorized to have 26,000 troops and police but only a fraction are on the ground. Annan criticized well-equipped countries for refusing to provide essential helicopters for the mission despite repeated appeals from the U.N.

At a dinner in his honor on Thursday, Annan said U.N. member states had placed the duty to protect civilians threatened by genocide or war crimes in the hands of the members of the Security Council.

”It is fair to question whether all of them have yet fully lived up to that responsibility — notably in Darfur,” Annan said.

He did not single out any countries on the council, which unanimously passed a resolution authorizing a joint AU-U.N. force last year.

China and Russia, two of the five permanent members of the council, have been reluctant to impose new sanctions on the Sudanese government, which has been accused of atrocities in a conflict that has left more than 200,000 people dead and displaced 2.5 million.

Recently Russia proposed sanctioning the ethnic African rebels fighting the Arab-dominated government. But the other three permanent council members — the United States, Britain and France — have stressed that Sudan’s leaders must also be targeted.

The Security Council adopted a resolution in March 2005 authorizing an asset freeze and travel ban on individuals who defy peace efforts, violate international human rights law, or are responsible for military overflights in Darfur. The council has also imposed an arms embargo against the government and rebels.

As secretary-general, Annan promoted the concept of an international ”responsibility to protect” those caught in conflict that was adopted by world leaders at a 2005 summit. He also played a key role in the establishment of the International Criminal Court, the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal.

Annan spoke at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where he received the first MacArthur Award for International Justice from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation at a dinner attended by 1,200 people.

Earlier in the day at wide-ranging round-table with journalists, Annan warned that military action against Iran would be ”a real disaster” and the whole region could explode if the world community does not handle the many conflicts there carefully.

He said he did not have enough information to determine whether Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful — as Tehran maintains.

But he said he had told the Iranians that if they had nothing to hide they should allow U.N. inspectors to go anywhere and reassure the world ”that you have no intention of producing nuclear weapons.”

The Iranian nuclear issue should be resolved through dialogue, he said.

”We cannot, I’m sure, take on another military action in Iran, and I hope no one is contemplating it. It would be a real disaster,” Annan stressed.

The United Nations today accused the Sudanese government of being directly involved in the mass-rape of girls and women in the crisis-hit region of Darfur — a damning indictment of the part played by the country’s Islamist dictatorship in the humanitarian catastrophe.

A report by the UN high commissioner for human rights says it has evidence that the Sudanese Army was involved alongside Arab militia in looting at least three towns, raping girls and women and killing at least 115 people.

The attacks on Sirba, Sileia and Abu Suruj on February 8 by helicopter gunships and aircraft caused 30,000 to flee their homes, Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said in her report.

The study is the latest authoritative UN report, based on eye-witness testimonies and evidence from aid workers, suggesting that President Omar al-Bashir’s administration is providing help and support to the brutal Arab janjaweed militia, who have reportedly robbed villages and murdered, raped or displaced their residents.

Last year, a UN report produced photographic evidence that the Sudanese government was carrying out secret bombing raids by disguising its jets as United Nations aid planes. Sudan denies the claims.

The UN says that the crisis afflicting the wartorn Darfur region has so far killed up to 400,000 people, and displaced a further 2.3 million, and campaigners have called on governments worldwide to isolate Mr al-Bashir’s regime for its involvement.

“The scale of destruction suggests that the damage was a deliberate and integral part of a military strategy,” the nine-page report on the rapes said.

It added that its concerns were ignored in discussions with the Sudanese-appointed governor of West Darfur. Other government officials denied collusion between the army and militias.

Most of Abu Suruj and much of Sileia was burnt down when militia on camels and horses joined the Sudanese army in attacking the towns, the report said. Some residents were burnt alive inside their homes, including a 75-year-old blind woman and a disabled girl, the report said.

Ms Arbour’s report added that there were also “strong indications” that members of the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF, committed rapes of women and girls in Sirba, located 30 miles north of West Darfur’s capital, El Geneina. “One eyewitness reported that she witnessed four girls being escorted to an abandoned hut and raped at gunpoint by a group of soldiers belonging to the SAF,” the report said.

It said armed men on camels and horses shot indiscriminately at Sirba’s residents and systematically torched and looted homes. Government troops did nothing to stop the atrocities, the report added.

In Sileia and Abu Suruj, eyewitnesses told UN investigators that Sudanese Armed Forces also took part in the pillaging.

“I witnessed SAF and janjaweed looting houses, shops and NGO offices,” an eyewitness was quoted as saying. “They would load the stolen goods in their cars and on their camels and horses and take them away.”

Human rights groups have long claimed that the oil-rich Sudanese government should be internationally isolated to punish it for its role in the crisis. However China, its biggest international investor, has refused to do so, despite threats of sanctions led by Britain and the United States.

The issue has led to Steven Spielberg’s withdrawal as an artistic adviser for this summer’s Olympic Games, a decision which was heavily criticised by China.

During the tenure of President Bush, the United States has expended significant diplomatic effort on the crisis in Darfur. Yet a peacekeeping force has been dogged by delays, and there is no political resolution in sight. John Prendergast, codirector of the ENOUGH Project, an initiative to end genocide and crimes against humanity, discusses what a new U.S. president could do to change strategy on Darfur. He says there are “significant flaws” in the current U.S. strategy, including its approach to facilitating peace talks. The State Department currently has one special envoy to Sudan, but Prendergast says an effective peace process needs “sustained, field-based, round the clock engagement with a team of U.S. diplomats working closely with the Chinese and Europeans.” He also says it is important to create what he calls a “multilateral consequence” for the Sudanese government in the event it continues to “undermine peace and stability in Darfur.”

The Bush administration was active in bringing about a peace agreement between north and south Sudan in 2005. Experts now warn that the region is in danger of slipping into conflict. Prendergast says instead of having an all-Sudan policy, the United States has stovepiped its policy objectives, pursuing them all separately and allowing the Sudanese government to “play one region off against another.” Focusing on Darfur has allowed Khartoum to slip on implementing the peace agreement with south Sudan. “We have to bring these policy streams together in one track,” he says.

Streaming audio of interview available here.

The world’s failure to end the killing in Darfur may soon be compounded by renewed fighting in southern Sudan. Another genocide cannot be allowed to happen.

The new threat centers on the oil-rich region of Abyei, which is claimed by both Sudan’s government and the semiautonomous government of South Sudan. Several hundred people have died there in recent clashes between a large group of Arab nomads, the Misseriya, and South Sudan’s armed forces. Like the janjaweed militias that unleashed Darfur’s horrors, the Misseriya are armed and encouraged by Khartoum.

More than two million people died in a 20-year civil war before the Bush administration brokered a peace deal in 2005. The goal was to create a unified democratic state. Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, has since balked at most everything that might make that work.

He rejected a plan for governing Abyei, setting its boundaries and sharing oil wealth. And he refused to comply with other commitments: forming joint military units, preparing for the return of refugees and taking a credible census before national elections in 2009.

President Bush — who has done a huge amount of hand-wringing about Sudan and Darfur — should have been pressing Khartoum to keep those commitments. But, as ever, there has been far too little follow-through.

We are encouraged that Mr. Bush has appointed a new envoy, Richard Williamson, a straight-talking lawyer who is already goading the United Nations and the White House to do more about Darfur’s nightmare. The Security Council had promised to send 26,000 peacekeepers by the end of last year. So far, there are only 9,000 because of Khartoum’s obstruction, United Nations red tape and the fecklessness of all the major states.

Mr. Williamson’s goal — another 3,600 peacekeepers by the end of May — still falls pitifully short of what is needed. He will also have to find ways to salvage the north-south peace deal before it is too late.

All of that means that the international community must find more effective ways to pressure Khartoum. China, Sudan’s major oil client, has real leverage but has not done nearly enough. Beijing and Russia must suspend arms sales. The United States must keep sanctions in place and consider a no-flight zone over Darfur.

Major players — including Europe and Sudan’s Arab allies — should make clear that Khartoum will pay a stiff price if it attacks the South. The United Nations should increase monitoring of flashpoints in Abyei and work to prevent local clashes from escalating.

The United States and others also need a fallback plan. They need to do a lot more to help southern Sudan build up its government and economy and, if necessary, its ability to defend itself.

JUBA, Sudan – South Sudan is seeing a surge in returning refugees, as people rush home to be counted in a census that has major political and economic implications for the region struggling to rebuild after decades of war.

Five times as many people were already returning — from 600 a week at the beginning of the year to 3,000 by the beginning of March, the U.N.’s refugee agency UNHCR said on Thursday, adding the trend was expected to continue.

“Part of it is political. They want to be counted in the census,” said UNHCR spokeswoman Fatoumata Kaba.

“Another factor is that if people come back now they can arrive in time for the planting season.”

Sudan’s national census, which is set to start on April 15 and run for two weeks, will pave the way for Sudan’s first democratic elections in 23 years.

The census results will also have an impact on how wealth is shared between the north and the south under the terms of the 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of civil war.

The increase in numbers followed heavy lobbying by southern politicians to get refugees home in time for the count, said William Chan Acuil, deputy chairman of the South Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission.

“They have to come and be counted, not only for political reasons but also for their own benefit,” said Acuil.

Many former exiles were returning from neighbouring Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda said the UNHCR.

A recent report by the lobby group Refugees International said only a “fraction” of the south’s estimated 2 million returnees had received adequate assistance.

Africa’s longest civil war, fought over issues of ethnicity, religion, ideology and oil, killed more than 2 million people and drove more than 4 million from their homes.

On 11 October 2007, the Sudan Liberation People’s Movement (SPLM) announced it was suspending participation in the Government of National Unity because the National Congress Party (NCP) was not implementing key aspects of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the generation-long, primarily North-South conflict. After months of high-level meetings, military posturing and increasingly aggressive rhetoric, the parties agreed on a series of measures and drew back from the brink. The SPLM rejoined the government, which includes a reorganised cabinet, on 27 December. The immediate crisis has been defused, but underlying difficulties remain, and the risk of significant new fighting is growing in the Abyei area. Both parties must re-commit to full CPA implementation if peace is to hold, and the international community must re-engage robustly in support of the still shaky peace deal and recognise that CPA implementation would create the best environment for peace in Darfur and beyond.

There is progress on most issues but few guarantees that the new timetables set in December will be implemented. As the parties position themselves for the scheduled 2009 national elections and the 2011 southern independence referendum, they continue to discuss a “partnership” arrangement, but three main factors still threaten the CPA. First and foremost, those who view the peace deal and the elections as a threat to their control have dominated the NCP almost since the July 2005 death of the SPLM leader John Garang. Having sidelined Vice President Ali Osman Taha, who negotiated it with Garang in the hope an electoral partnership with the former insurgents could bring the NCP a democratic victory, the regime has sought to protect its control over the state and the economy and delay elections. The NCP still wants a partnership but one that neutralises the SPLM as a national challenger and defines it as a purely southern-based junior partner.

Secondly, the SPLM remains deeply divided on priorities. The main division is between those who favour a southern-first strategy and concentrate on the 2011 referendum and those who support Garang’s New Sudan vision and want to play a role in national politics, including through open confrontation with the NCP. The latter seek to change the country’s governance and address the grievances of its marginalised regions. The infighting has weakened both CPA implementation and the party’s vis-à-vis the NCP.

The SPLM has offered the NCP a joint electoral ticket in exchange for full CPA implementation, beginning with Abyei, and for the moment those pushing a national agenda have the upper hand. But the SPLM’s second-ever national convention, planned for May, will be both a critically important opportunity to reconcile its competing visions and establish more transparent decision-making processes and a potentially risky occasion for leaders who face demands from multiple constituencies, including the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile and Abyei.

Thirdly, the international guarantors and the UN remain dangerously disengaged on the CPA, due in part to preoccupation with Darfur and in part to a lack of consensus on the way forward. During the late 2007 crisis, they appeared mainly concerned about its potential impact on attempts to settle Darfur. Having concluded that it cannot rely on the guarantors, the SPLM has been building up its military capacity, which many members consider its only realistic leverage over the NCP, as well as developing alliances with marginalised movements and rebel factions within Darfur, Kordofan, the East and the far North.

Both parties calculate that a return to war is not in their best present interests, and they have more to gain working together. But there is great distrust, and each side wants cooperation on its own terms. If peace is to hold, they must rededicate themselves to the CPA and broaden its national support. The following actions are urgently needed:

The NCP should appoint those who formed the team that successfully negotiated the CPA to lead on this file, as this offers the best chance to revive the win-win scenario that led to its signature. Such a move would be seen as a sign of good faith and re-commitment to the agreement’s implementation.

The SPLM should use its National Convention in May to resolve internal differences, adopt a clear strategy on CPA implementation and build transparent decision-making mechanisms.

The CPA’s international guarantors and partner countries should convene a conference, within the framework of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) or the IGAD Partners Forum, to develop a coordinated strategy on CPA implementation, including its relationship to Darfur.

The Assessment and Evaluation Commission (AEC) should be revitalised, with an effective verification mechanism and regular meetings at envoy level. The new AEC chair should encourage its international members to actively support its work and unify their positions on issues discussed in working groups. If it cannot become more effective, key diplomatic missions in Khartoum should create a shadow AEC, free to report without the parties’ constraints.

The UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) should increase monitoring of flashpoint areas in Abyei and along the North-South border and negotiate with the parties to create demilitarised zones into which UNMIS forces could deploy and monitor movements of troops to help prevent local flare-ups from escalating. Regular access for UNMIS north of Abyei town has been blocked consistently by the NCP, a violation of the UNMIS mandate that needs to be remedied. The Secretary-General should require monthly reports from UNMIS for the Security Council focusing on implementation of key CPA benchmarks such as Abyei, redeployment of armed forces, the census, election preparations, fiscal management and transparency of oil revenues. The AEC’s findings and recommendations should also be delivered to the Security Council via this monthly reporting.

The international community should work closely with the national unity government on contingency planning concerning the census (particularly in Darfur) and lagging preparations for the 2009 elections.

Above all, international policies must no longer be bifurcated between the CPA and Darfur. Sudan’s multiple conflicts are outgrowths of a common set of national problems and need to be treated as such.

This is a briefing. To download the full report, click here.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States has called for a new initiative to get a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force on the ground in Darfur, where the 5-year conflict has escalated and malnutrition is rising.

Ambassador Richard Williamson, who took over in January as President Bush’s special envoy to Sudan, said countries that are “friends” of the African Union-United Nations force would meet Thursday at U.N. headquarters for the first time to start tackling obstacles to deployment of the hybrid force known as UNAMID.

“Given the humanitarian suffering, given the instability and violence that’s going on, its way past time for talk. We have to have action including accelerating deployment of UNAMID troops on the ground,” Williamson told reporters Wednesday after meeting U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Sudan’s Arab-dominated government has been accused of unleashing the janjaweed militia of Arab nomads to commit atrocities against ethnic African communities in the country’s western Darfur region as part of a fight with rebel groups. At least 200,000 people have been killed and 2.2 million displaced since the fighting began five years ago.

The AU-U.N. force for Darfur is authorized to have 26,000 troops and police, but Ban said only about 7,500 military personnel and 1,500 police officers were in Darfur as of Jan. 31. He appealed to all countries that have pledged troops to expedite their deployment — reiterated an appeal for critically needed helicopters.

At Sudan’s insistence, the U.N. Security Council agreed that the force would be predominantly African. But the Sudanese government has refused to approve non-African units from Thailand, Nepal and Nordic countries.

Williamson said he discussed the composition of the force with Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir in Kharrtoum last week and asked him for a commitment to allow 1,600 troops from Nepal and Thailand to deploy to Darfur this summer if thousands of African troops are on the ground first.

“He did not reject it,” Williamson said. “We’re going to have some follow up discussions.”

Williamson said another 3,600 African peacekeepers would on the ground by the end of May.

“All we want is results on the ground, so there can be alleviation of humanitarian suffering, so there can be some stability,” he said. “I think we’re wrong to obsess about the helicopters. Our immediate obsession should be to try to get peacekeepers on the ground.”

Williamson said that in addition to moving troops into Darfur, the new Friends of UNAMID group would help address other problems, such as building camps for the troops, providing reliable water supplies, finding helicopters and developing infrastructure.

“Those who can provide assistance will be meeting on a weekly basis, going through specific lists” of what needs to be done and coordinating with the U.N. Secretariat, Williamson said.

Sudan’s U.N. Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed said his government had “a question about whether it is an attempt by one member to monopolize the operation because the entire Security Council membership has a stake in this exercise.”

He added that anyone who wants to assist UNAMID can do so through the AU or the U.N. Peacekeeping Department.

At least 70 people were killed in the violence which occurred on 1 March in south Al-Mayram, aid workers in the Southern capital of Juba said.

The UN’s Radio Miraya quoted the head of the Abyei Liberation Front, Mohammed Omer Al-Ansari, as saying the clashes were in retaliation for recent SPLM attacks. But the SPLM Secretary in Abyei, Chol Chan, instead accused the Sudanese government in Khartoum of arming the Misseriya.

A senior SPLM leader and minister for presidential affairs in the government of Southern Sudan, Luka Biong, said the attacks were carried out by a group he named as the Popular Defense Forces, supported by the Sudan Armed Forces. He called for investigations into the clashes.

The weekend battles were only the latest in a series of incidents that have raised tensions in Abyei. In December 2007 and January 2008, violent clashes between the SPLA and the Misseriya resulted in the deaths of at least 75 people.

In a report to the UN Security Council on 19 February, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sudan, warned that Abyei, which lies between North and South Sudan, was a possible troublespot from which conflict could resume.

Abyei has experienced an administrative and political vacuum after disagreements over its status since a comprehensive agreement was signed to end the civil war three years ago.

The people of Abyei, Qazi said, had been denied the dividends of peace since the signing of the agreement and had been deprived of an administrative structure and basic services related to the provision of security, education, health and employment.

Analysts have warned that no area in Sudan is perhaps more volatile and carries more implications for the country’s future than Abyei. According to the International Crisis Group, the risk of a return to war is rising because of the Abyei stalemate.

SPLM leaders say the North has ignored its proposals over Abyei because of oil revenues from the region – estimated at US$529 million in 2007. The government in Khartoum denies the claims.

SULEIA, Sudan — The janjaweed are back.

They came to this dusty town in the Darfur region of Sudan on horses and camels on market day. Almost everybody was in the bustling square. At the first clatter of automatic gunfire, everyone ran.

The militiamen laid waste to the town — burning huts, pillaging shops, carrying off any loot they could find and shooting anyone who stood in their way, residents said. Asha Abdullah Abakar, wizened and twice widowed, described how she hid in a hut, praying it would not be set on fire.

“I have never been so afraid,” she said.

The attacks by the janjaweed, the fearsome Arab militias that came three weeks ago, accompanied by government bombers and followed by the Sudanese Army, were a return to the tactics that terrorized Darfur in the early, bloodiest stages of the conflict.

Such brutal, three-pronged attacks of this scale — involving close coordination of air power, army troops and Arab militias in areas where rebel troops have been — have rarely been seen in the past few years, when the violence became more episodic and fractured. But they resemble the kinds of campaigns that first captured the world’s attention and prompted the Bush administration to call the violence in Darfur genocide.

Aid workers, diplomats and analysts say the return of such attacks is an ominous sign that the fighting in Darfur, which has grown more complex and confusing as it has stretched on for five years, is entering a new and deadly phase — one in which the government is planning a scorched-earth campaign against the rebel groups fighting here as efforts to find a negotiated peace founder.

The government has carried out a series of coordinated attacks in recent weeks, using air power, ground forces and, according to witnesses and peacekeepers stationed in the area, the janjaweed, as their allied militias are known here. The offensives are aimed at retaking ground gained by a rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement, which has been gathering strength and has close ties to the government of neighboring Chad.

Government officials say that their strikes have been carefully devised to hit the rebels, not civilians, and that Arab militias were not involved. They said they had been motivated to evict the rebels in part because the rebels were hijacking aid vehicles and preventing peacekeepers from patrolling the area, events that some aid workers and peacekeepers confirmed.

“We are simply trying to secure the area from the bandits that are troubling civilians in the area,” said Ali al-Sadig, a government spokesman. “There is nothing abnormal about a government doing this.”

But residents of the towns said the rebels had been long gone by the time the government attacks began, leaving defenseless civilians to flee bombs and guns. In interviews, survivors of the attacks described a series of assaults that had left dozens dead, turned large sections of towns into hut-shaped circles of ash and scattered tens of thousands of fearful residents, including hundreds of children, who fled classrooms in the middle of a school day and have not been reunited with their families.

“My son Ahmed, he ran, but I have not seen him since,” said a woman named Aisha as she waited for a sack of sorghum from United Nations workers in Sirba, one of the towns that was attacked. “I just pray he is still hiding in the bush somewhere and will come back to me.”

A Terrorized Population

The United Nations estimates that the recent fighting has forced about 45,000 people to flee their homes in Darfur, which is roughly the size of Texas and has a population of about six million people. Some fled to Chad, where they have not been able to reach the safety of refugee camps because of continued bombing along the border. Others fled to Jebel Moun, a rebel stronghold to the east, and aid workers fear for the safety of about 20,000 people who are in the path of future attacks if the government presses ahead with its offensive and the rebels vow to resist.

Military officials from the peacekeeping force in Darfur said in recent days that the Sudanese military had added nearly a brigade of troops to West Darfur, along with two dozen tanks and armored vehicles and many heavy weapons.

“You see a buildup from both sides,” said Ameerah Haq, the senior United Nations aid official in Sudan. “Both sides must desist. We have a population that is just being attacked and hit from both sides.”

Pressure is mounting on Sudan over Darfur. In January, a long-sought hybrid United Nations and African Union peacekeeping force began working in Darfur, but the Sudanese government’s quibbling over which countries the troops will come from and bureaucratic delays have stalled the force’s deployment.

Sudan’s biggest trading partner and ally, China, has also come under pressure from advocates who have linked the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer to the fighting in Darfur. China has been more publicly critical of the Sudanese government in recent weeks. Sudan has also been trying to improve its relationship with the United States, and last week, President Bush’s new special envoy to Sudan, Richard S. Williamson, visited Darfur and the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, meeting with President Omar al-Bashir. Any improvement in relations, he said, would be contingent on tangible improvements in the humanitarian situation.

“Since the first of the year another 75,000 people in Darfur have been displaced,” Mr. Williamson said in a telephone interview. “That is more than a thousand a day. There are not going to be any changes until that reverses.”

Origins of a Conflict

Despite the pressure, the government seems determined to fight on, and the most powerful rebel groups — the biggest factions of the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudanese Liberation Army — have refused to sit down for talks. So the violence continues, tracing a familiar arc as it wears on.

It was five years ago last week that an attack by rebels from non-Arab tribes like the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa, seeking greater wealth and autonomy for the neglected and impoverished region of Darfur, prompted the Arab-dominated government to marshal Arab militias in the region that ultimately evicted millions from their homes, burning, looting and raping along the way. The campaign effectively pushed many non-Arab people off their land and into vast, squalid camps across Darfur and Chad.

In the first two years of the conflict, 2003 and 2004, joint attacks by the Sudanese Army, janjaweed militiamen and the government’s old Russian-made Antonov bombers terrorized Darfur, waging a brutal counterinsurgency against non-Arab rebel groups by attacking their fellow tribesmen in their villages. At least 200,000 are believed to have died as a result of the violence or sickness and hunger caused by the crisis, according to international estimates, with the majority of violent deaths in that period.

But in the past two years, the conflict has grown more complex and chaotic, and while some coordinated attacks by janjaweed militias and aerial bombardment have occurred, they were not of the same scale or intensity. But Darfur has remained a deadly place.

In 2006, before a peace agreement and then in the aftermath of its failure, rebel groups fractured and began fighting among themselves. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced and hundreds died as a result of their battles. Today, according to some estimates, two dozen rebel groups are jockeying for territory and influence in Darfur. Some analysts and human rights workers say the government has sown chaos by splintering the rebel groups to weaken them.

In 2007, Arab tribes, some of which had allied with the government and some of which had taken up arms to fight the rebels, also began to fight one another. Many of the violent deaths of 2007 were caused by these bloody battles between Arab groups and their militias, according to aid workers and diplomats in the region.

But as the conflict enters its sixth year, an older, deadly pattern is returning, and with it fears are rising among villagers, aid workers, diplomats and analysts that Darfur is headed for a new cycle of bloodletting and displacement on a vast scale.

In recent weeks, bombs dropped from government planes hit Abu Surouj, Sirba, Suleia and other towns in West Darfur, then came janjaweed militiamen, who killed, raped and burned, helping themselves to livestock and grain, furniture and clothing. In one town, the raiders pried the corrugated metal roof off a school, aid workers said. In another, water pumps were destroyed.

“This is the kind of destruction that makes it hard for people to return,” said Ted Chaiban, the Unicef representative in Sudan, who has toured the area of the attacks. “People need security. They are totally vulnerable.”

Violence in Chad

The recent violence in Chad, where rebel groups with bases in Sudan tried to topple the government in early February, has worsened matters. Rebels in Darfur, who diplomats and analysts say have received arms and cash from the family of Chad’s president, Idriss Déby, rushed into Chad to help defend him, creating a vacuum in the territory they had occupied. Sudan’s government seized the opportunity to retake the ground and now appears to be pushing farther into areas long held by the rebels, according to peacekeepers stationed here.

Few people in the region were unhappy to see the Justice and Equality Movement evicted. Banditry was rife in the territory it controlled, and for months aid groups had dodged carjackings and other attacks. African Union peacekeepers had been barred from the area, according to Brig. Gen. Balla Keita, the new regional commander of the hybrid United Nations-African Union force in West Darfur.

“They were causing a lot of insecurity,” General Keita said of the rebels, but he added that this did not justify attacks on heavily populated areas.

In Suleia, only a few hundred residents remained of the 15,000 who had lived here. Those left behind were too weak to run and have sought safety near the army camp at the edge of town, sleeping in the open, huddled together for warmth against the frigid night winds.

The Sudanese soldiers here have promised to protect them from militiamen who still roam the edges of town. They prevented militiamen from stealing sacks of grain delivered by aid groups, residents said.

Adam Adoum Abdullah, a former rebel fighter who joined the Sudanese Army as part of a peace deal with one rebel group in 2006, commandeered an army truck to help collect what little food, blankets and bits of shelter remained in the town for those sleeping out in the cold next to the army camp.

“I am ashamed that the janjaweed come with the soldiers,” Mr. Abdullah said. “What kind of army are we to fight like this? These people, they are suffering. We must help them.”

This dusty little town of rutted dirt streets is surrounded by janjaweed, Arab militias armed by the Sudanese government and paid to do its dirty work.

But this isn’t Darfur, where the janjaweed have played the central role in the genocide that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Rather, Abyei is on the edge of southern Sudan, in a region that is supposed to be at peace.

In the 1980s and 1990s, it was here that the government perfected the techniques that later became notorious in Darfur: mass rape and murder by armed militias, so as to terrorize civilians and drive them away. Now Sudan is coming full circle, apparently preparing to apply the same techniques again to Abyei and parts of the south.

With international attention distracted by Darfur and the United States presidential race, the Sudanese government now is chipping away at the 2005 peace treaty that ended the north-south war in Sudan. If war erupts, as many expect, the flash point will probably be here in Abyei, where the northern government is pumping oil from wells it refuses to give up.

“War is going to take place,” Joseph Dut Paguot, the acting government administrator in the Abyei region, said bluntly.

Chol Changath Chol, a representative of South Sudan in Abyei, agreed: “If there are no changes, war will come. It will break out here and spread everywhere.”

Since late November, there have been repeated clashes in the Abyei area between South Sudan’s armed forces and a large tribe of Arab nomads, the Misseriya, which is armed and backed by the Sudanese government in Khartoum. Mr. Paguot said that several hundred people had been killed in these clashes, and that some of the gunmen were government soldiers who had taken off their uniforms to masquerade as tribal fighters.

On Feb. 7, gunmen from the Misseriya shot up and looted a bus arriving in Abyei and began blockading the road that leads into the town from the north. That has cut off supplies, so shops in the town market are running out of fuel and food, and prices are rising.

“It is reaching a critical point for the poor,” said Jason Matus, a United Nations official in Abyei.

A group of Misseriya has appointed officials to create their own government for Abyei and has threatened to march in with thousands of armed men to install it. This is almost exactly the same approach that President Omar al-Bashir has taken in Darfur: arm the janjaweed and unleash them on a black African population, then dismiss the slaughter as just “tribal fighting.”

Mr. Paguot said that 16,000 militia members were gathered on the north side of Abyei, backed by a few tanks and many pickup trucks with mounted machine guns, ready to invade. They aren’t called the janjaweed, but it’s the same idea.

Some local officials and Misseriya elders have worked heroically to avert violence, but state-controlled newspapers in Khartoum are carrying false reports of attacks on Arabs, inflaming tensions.

In the 2005 peace agreement that ended 20 years of war between North and South Sudan, both sides agreed to accept the “final and binding” ruling of the Abyei Boundary Commission. But President Bashir has rejected the findings because they would mean giving up oil wells.

The agreement came about because of tireless diplomacy by the Bush administration, but since then Washington has dropped the ball. It is still possible to avert a new slaughter here, but only if there is a major international effort — involving the United Nations, Egypt, China and Europe as well as the United States — to ensure that the peace agreement is followed and that President Bashir will pay a price for attacking the south.

A crucial step would be for China to suspend transfers of arms to Sudan until the Khartoum government works for peace with the south and in Darfur. Unfortunately, China refuses to take that step.

Mr. Bashir’s plan seems to be to encourage Arab nomads to drive out other ethnic groups from areas with oil. Then once fighting begins, he would have an excuse to cancel national elections next year — which he would almost surely lose — and he might be able to rally Sudanese Arabs behind him in a nationalist campaign to hold on to the oil fields.

So remember this little town of Abyei. It’s the tinderbox for Africa’s next war, which will probably resemble Darfur but be carried out on a much wider scale.

“If there is just one bullet in Abyei,” said Col. Valentino Tocmac, the commander of the south’s forces here, “that will be the end of the peace.”

JUBA, Sudan — The Sudanese government started the first genocide of the 21st century in Darfur, and now it seems to be preparing to start the second here among the thatch-roof huts of southern Sudan.

South Sudan is rich in oil, but its people are among the poorest in the world, far poorer than those in Darfur. Only 1 percent of girls here finish elementary school, meaning that a young woman is more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than to become literate. Leprosy and Ebola linger here. South Sudan is the size of Texas, yet it has only 10 miles of paved road and almost no electricity; just about the only running water here is the Nile River.

The poverty is mostly the result of the civil war between North and South Sudan that raged across the southern part of the country for two decades and cost 2 million lives. For many impoverished villagers, their only exposure to modern technology has been to endure bombings by the Sudanese Air Force. The war finally ended, thanks in part to strong American pressure, in 2005 with a landmark peace agreement — but that peace is now fraying.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is backing away from the peace agreement, and prodding Arab militias to revive the war with the South Sudan military forces. Small-scale armed clashes have broken out since late last year, and it looks increasingly likely that Darfur will become simply the prologue to a far bloodier conflict that engulfs all Sudan.

Even my presence here is a sign of the rising tensions and mistrust. The Sudanese government refuses me visas, but the authorities in the south let me enter from Kenya without a visa because they want the word to get out that war is again looming.

The authorities in disputed areas such as the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State also welcomed me, rather than arresting me, even though those areas technically are on the northern side of the dividing line. Local officials in both areas warned that President Bashir and his radical Arab political party are preparing to revive the war against non-Arab groups in the south and center of the country.

“If things go on as they are now, war will break out,” said Sila Musa Kangi, the commissioner of Kormuk in Blue Nile. “And it can break out at any time.”

Although people speak of renewed “war,” the violence is more likely to resemble what happens in a stockyard. If it is like the last time, government-sponsored Arab militias will slaughter civilians so as to terrorize local populations and drive them far away from oil wells.

Under the 2005 deal that ended the war, Sudan is supposed to hold elections early next year, but President Bashir is unlikely to allow them because he almost surely would lose. Likewise, Mr. Bashir is unlikely to abide by his commitment to allow the south to hold a referendum in 2011 to decide whether to separate from Sudan because southerners would likely vote overwhelmingly for independence — and more than three-quarters of the country’s oil is in the south.

Already, the Sudanese government is backtracking on its commitments under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or C.P.A.: It still hasn’t withdrawn all of its troops from the south; it hasn’t accepted a boundary commission report for the oil-rich border area of Abyei; it keeps delaying a census needed for the elections; and it appears to be cheating the south of oil revenues. And the U.S. and other countries have acquiesced in all this.

“We say to the international community, ‘you midwifed the C.P.A., and then you left,’ ” said Rebecca Garang, the widow of the longtime southern leader, John Garang. “You must come back and check the baby.”

Those who focused on Sudan’s atrocities in Darfur, myself included, may have inadvertently removed the spotlight from South Sudan. Without easing the outrage over Darfur — where the bloodshed has been particularly appalling lately — we must broaden the focus to include the threat to the south.

One of the lessons of Darfur, Rwanda and Bosnia is that it is much easier to avert a genocide ahead of time than to put the pieces together afterward. So let’s not wait until gunshots are ringing out again all over the south.

There are steps that the U.S. can take to diminish the risk of a new war. We can work with the international community to raise the costs to President Bashir of defying his treaty obligations.

We can warn Sudan that if it starts a new war, we will supply anti-aircraft weapons to the south to make it harder for the north to resume bombing hospitals, churches and schools. We can also raise the possibility of protecting the south with a no-fly zone, which might be enough to deter Mr. Bashir from starting yet another genocide.

KHARTOUM — Amid the international outrage over the bloodshed in Darfur, frustration has increasingly turned toward China, Sudan’s biggest trading partner and international protector, culminating in Steven Spielberg’s decision last week to withdraw as artistic adviser to the Beijing Olympics.

And it may be working.

China has begun shifting its position on Darfur, stepping outside its diplomatic comfort zone to quietly push Sudan to accept the world’s largest peacekeeping force, diplomats and analysts say.

It has also acted publicly, sending engineers to help peacekeepers in Darfur and appointing a special envoy to the region who has toured refugee camps and pressed the Sudanese government to change its policies.

Few analysts expect China to walk away from its business ties to Sudan, but its willingness to take up the issue is a rare venture into something China swears it never does — meddle in the internal affairs of its trading partners.

“China in my view has been very cooperative,” said Andrew S. Natsios, the former special envoy of President Bush to Sudan. “The level of coordination and cooperation has been improving each month.”

For all of China’s billion-dollar oil contracts, multimillion-dollar arms shipments and Security Council veto protection of Sudan, the global power with the biggest influence over the country has scarcely a dime invested here, has no ambassador on Sudanese soil and has slapped progressively tougher sanctions on its government: the United States.

While conventional wisdom holds that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have sapped America’s prestige and power, especially in Muslim countries, the United States remains the gatekeeper to international respectability in the eyes of the Sudanese government, and its power to influence top officials here — through threats or inducements — remains unmatched, diplomats, Sudanese government officials and analysts say.

“Coming to some sort of agreement with the United States is the Holy Grail of Sudanese politics,” said a senior Western diplomat in Khartoum, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “No one has been able to deliver it.”

This holds true though Sudan is awash in investments from Asia and the gulf that would, in theory, allow the oil-rich but development-poor country to prosper more broadly than it has despite American opprobrium.

American approval and acceptance would transform Sudan in a way the billions of dollars from China, India, Malaysia, Iran and the gulf have been unable to: by opening the spigots of Western development aid and with it a deal to reduce its nearly $30 billion in external debt, along with technical assistance to manage the tide of money rushing in.

“We are receiving billions of dollars in foreign investment that we are not even prepared to absorb,” said Ali al-Sadig, a senior diplomat and Sudanese government spokesman who worked on the China desk of Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for many years. “We don’t have the capacity. We need Western expertise. Sudan wants, above all, a normal relationship with the United States and the West.” But the Bush administration seems divided on what to do about Darfur. On one hand, there is heavy pressure from advocacy groups, Congress and others to take a tough line with Sudan, stepping up sanctions and hammering the government over new attacks.

At the same time, because Sudan is a crucial ally of the United States in fighting terrorism, some in the administration argue that it cannot be allowed to become more isolated and further beyond the West’s orbit than it already is, diplomats and analysts say.

Sudan’s relationship with the West has been troubled ever since Omar al-Bashir seized power in 1989 and embraced militant Islam, playing host to a variety of jihadists, including Osama bin Laden. The relationship hit its lowest in 1998 when the Clinton administration bombed a Khartoum pharmaceutical factory it claimed was producing chemical weapons, though the allegation has never been proved.

After Sept. 11, Sudan reached out to the United States, realizing that it could find itself in the cross hairs of America’s military might just as Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and Iraq later did. The two countries have since cooperated on counterterrorism issues, even though Sudan remains on an American list of nations that sponsor terrorism.

Mr. Bush sent John C. Danforth, the former Missouri senator, to help negotiate a deal to end the civil war in southern Sudan that had lasted two decades and claimed two million lives.

Sudan had many reasons for wanting to end the war — its military was exhausted, and a stalemate was helping neither side — but the chance to improve relations with the United States was a big inducement for Sudan’s government.

Then “Darfur happened,” the diplomat said.

At first, the conflict in Darfur seemed a fly in the ointment, a distraction from the main work of securing peace between the north and south. But five years later, the Darfur crisis is undermining the peace agreement and threatens to tear Sudan apart.

More than 200,000 have died in Darfur, according to international estimates, and 2.5 million have been pushed into camps here and in Chad, sowing chaos in one of the world’s poorest regions. Sudan’s government says the toll has been greatly exaggerated.

The conflict has also inspired one of the largest protest movements in the United States since the battle to end apartheid in South Africa. China, with its vast commercial interests and sensitivity to criticism around the Olympics, presents a unique leverage point for this movement.

Like Mr. Spielberg, Mia Farrow, an actress and Darfur activist, has said China can do more, specifically by pushing for the full deployment of 27,000 peacekeeping troops in Darfur, supplying some of the helicopters needed for the mission and demanding an end to aerial bombardment of civilian areas.

But some diplomats and analysts argue that offering concessions, not demands — a chance to come off the state sponsor of terrorism list or easing sanctions — may offer the best opportunity to get Sudan’s government to strike a deal in Darfur.

There are grave risks to that strategy, not least of which is that Sudan’s government has a history of making agreements and not fully putting them in place.

“What this government responds to is pressure,” Jerry Fowler, executive director of the Save Darfur Coalition, said of Sudan’s leaders.

As a senior Western diplomat in Khartoum put it, the West’s stance on Sudan must be “mistrust but verify,” a twist on Reagan’s posture on the Soviet Union.

Furthermore, the Sudanese government is far from unanimous in its craving for international respectability. The small cadre who have ruled this country since the National Islamic Front seized power in a coup in 1989 have tried a variety of guises — radical Islamism, Arab nationalism and garden variety despotism — in their quest to hang on to power.

The relative moderates who were crucial to negotiating a deal with the south have been largely sidelined, and analysts and diplomats say that hard-liners in the military and elsewhere are increasingly less interested in Western ties.

As for China, analysts warn, there are limits to how far it will go. Olympics or no, China’s leadership simply has too much at stake in Sudan.

“Their political fortunes are tied to their ability to deliver a constant stream of economic goods at home,” said Christopher Alden, a senior lecturer at the London School of Economics who has studied China-Africa relations. “They can’t say, ‘O.K., we have sunk billions over the long term in Sudan and we are just going to walk away from it because of Darfur.’ It is just not going to happen.”

China, along with Iran, Russia and others, is still selling weapons to Sudan. While China says it is abiding by a United Nations embargo on sending weapons directly to Darfur, an analysis of shell casings and vehicles found in Darfur by a panel of United Nations experts found that Chinese weapons were making their way to Darfur.

Fractures among the rebel groups in Darfur and threats from Sudan’s neighbors, like Chad, may have more impact on the quest for peace than anything Washington or Beijing does.

Still, John Prendergast, a former Clinton administration official, advocate and writer on Sudan for two decades, said that China and the United States needed to be engaged.

“Unless China and the U.S. are both exerting much more pressure on Sudan, the crisis will continue to spiral out of control,” he said in an e-mail message. “China has unique economic leverage, while the U.S. retains leverage based on its ability to confer or withdraw legitimacy.”

KHARTOUM — Darfur is the more recognizable conflict, but another, arguably more explosive, battle is brewing in Sudan.

This potential flash point is Abyei, a small, ethnically diverse enclave on the border between the Arab north and the African south. Now, a dispute is under way over who should control the district – a power struggle infused with ethnic rivalry, marginalization, politics, and greed.

Split between Arabic-speaking nomads and non-Arabic-speaking farmers, Abyei is a territory where cultures once blended, but where a sharp dividing line has been drawn between two political forces that fought a civil war to a draw.

After a failed US-led mediation effort, Abyei has become a rallying cry for war. What’s at stake? Pastureland, oil wells, and the continuation of a three-year-old peace deal that ended the 20-year civil war that killed more than 2 million Sudanese.

“It’s like Kashmir, where you have two big entities – the National Congress party leading the country from Khartoum for nearly 20 years and you’ve got major rebel groups on the other side, and both sides will not compromise on Abyei,” says John Prendergast, an antigenocide advocate for the Enough Project in Washington. “Then you add in oil, with the industry involved,” and that raises the stakes even higher.

“Unless there is a very significant form of external mediation, backed by significant carrots and sticks, we’re not going to see a resolution,” he adds.

“There is no interest, no desire on the part of the government to go back to war, because there is nothing to be gained from it,” says Ghazi Salahuddin, the parliamentary leader of the National Congress Party, which has a majority of seats in the national legislature. As for the south, he adds, “My assumption is that they have enough sense to realize that war is not in their interests. It will be a disaster for the south and the whole of Sudan.”

But the conflict may have already begun. On Dec. 21, armed nomadic herdsmen – reportedly driving pickup trucks with mounted machine guns – clashed with troops of the Southern Sudanese military (the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army, or SPLA) near the town of Al-Miram. Thirty of the Arab nomads were killed in the subsequent fighting.

A general lack of control of security has even attracted Islamist rebels from the nearby province of South Darfur. Last year, members of the Justice and Equality Movement, a Darfur-based rebel group, launched attacks against Chinese-run oil wells in Abyei and later launched raids against peacekeepers from the African Union.

Before the civil war between north and south Sudan, from 1983 to 2005, conflicts in Abyei were dealt with by traditional means among its two main communities, the Dinka and the Messeriya Arabs. If a Dinka farmer was killed on Messeriya Arab land, the Arabs would pay compensation to the Dinkas, regardless of who killed him; the same rule applied to the Arabs.

Abdul Rasool Al-Nour, a Messeriya Arab elder who helped to negotiate previous peace agreements between Dinka and Messeriya Arabs, says that the civil war has destroyed the trust between the two communities.

“This is a very dangerous situation, with the nomads fighting the Army of the SPLA,” he says. “What we want is a new demarcation of the boundaries by a national committee. I’m hopeful, because I know the relations between the two tribes. I know how much each tribe needs each other. But we have the curse of the oil.”

Oil has indeed raised the stakes, as the new boundaries selected by the US-led Abyei Boundary Commission have included a major oil field at Heglieg within the newly demarcated boundaries of Abyei. If the powerful Dinka community in Abyei were to decide in a 2011 referendum to join their southern Dinka brethren, all of that oil wealth could fall into Southern hands.

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005, signed between the northern government of Khartoum and the mainly southern breakaway SPLA, should have resolved all of this. But even after the two sides decided to form a joint Government of National Unity, distrust has remained. The distrust came to a head in December, when the entire delegation of SPLA ministers pulled out of the Khartoum government, in part over Abyei.

“I think the withdrawal of the SPLM [Sudanese People's Liberation Movement] ministers from government was an alarm bell, that if we did not wake up the two parties to observe the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, it will end,” says Mansour Khaled, a senior member of the SPLM. “The results will be catastrophic for the whole of Sudan.”

Abyei is just one of many points of contention between the two sides. Now politics is affecting relations between Dinkas and the Messeriya Arabs.

“There was an intermingling of traditions, of food, of forms of dress, of language,” says Mr. Khaled. “Then, when you add the element of war, and the realignment of communities, the conflict took a different dimension, an ethnic dimension, a religious dimension, and of course, this is a very lethal thing.”

According to the original plan, says parliament speaker Ghazi Salahuddin, the Abyei Boundary Commission was supposed to set the border according to a line demarcated by British colonial powers in 1905, which many Messeriya Arabs believe is the seasonal Bahr al-Arab river. Instead, the boundary commission experts couldn’t find that boundary in the archival records, and unilaterally decided to locate it in a forested no man’s land, which put the oil-rich town of Heglieg within Dinka hands.

“This was a good agreement, but the political reality is that the north regards Abyei as a Kuwait, and the south regards it as a Jerusalem, so we have a problem,” says a senior Western diplomat, speaking on background. “So we should go back to arbitration. But right now, there is no progress on Abyei. This isn’t a question of a glass half full or a glass half empty. There’s no glass.”

Andrew Natsios’ article in Outlook illustrates in stark terms much of what has been wrong with U.S. policy since the Darfur genocide began to unfold in 2003. He unwittingly highlights three crucial ingredients of U.S. failure: a misunderstanding the problem; an exaggeration of the importance of the response; and poor execution, particularly on the peacekeeping front.

The first theme — misunderstanding — emerges when Natsios describes the situation in Darfur as anarchy. He illustrates his point with a story of refugee revenge that leaves the reader confused about the major cause of violence in Darfur. What U.S. officials do not seem to realize is that anarchy was and remains the very intent of the Sudanese regime’s genocidal counter-insurgency policy. The government’s divide-and-destroy approach pits community against community, just as Khartoum did in southern Sudan for two decades.

This misunderstanding leads to moral equivalency and even-handedness, and the result is that U.S. policy ends up favoring the orchestrator of most of the violence in Darfur: the Sudanese regime. This emboldens regime officials to continue their destruction of Darfur and obstruct efforts to reverse the crisis.

Which leads to the second theme that emerges in Natsios’ article: exaggeration. Natsios claims that Darfurians are widespread in their admiration of the U.S. efforts, to the point where some are naming their babies after George Bush. But the Darfurian refugee and displaced populations I have met over the last few years feel that Bush’s repeated use of the term “genocide” raised hopes of assertive American action that has yet to materialize.

It is certainly a credit to the American taxpayer that the United States is leading the way in providing humanitarian aid. However, just as with the Ethiopian famine in the 1980s and the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide in the ’90s, the U.S. is providing billions of dollars of humanitarian aid without undertaking the serious diplomatic and military work necessary to confront the horrors that are occurring. It is easy to provide humanitarian assistance from the American breadbasket. It’s hard to deal with the causes that make that assistance necessary.

Finally, Natsios article fails to convey how U.S. efforts have only made matters worse in Darfur. Darfurians I have met articulate a few basic demands that must be addressed in any peace deal, including the dismantling of the janjaweed militia and compensation for losses suffered in the genocide. Neither of these was addressed adequately in the peace plan the U.S. tried to ram down the throats of rebel leaders in 2006. Until the U.S. and other putative peacemakers deal with the fundamental issues like these, there will be blood.

It’s true, as Natsios argues, that the various rebel factions must come together for Darfur to have a chance. And it is true that many rebel leaders are warlords, and some are war criminals. But travel deep into rebel-held war zones and talk to the rebel rank-and-file, as I have, and you learn that thousands of Darfurians will continue to fight because they believe they are defending their communities from genocide — and they will fight until a serious peace deal is offered.

President Bush has almost 11 months to make a difference in Darfur. Building on his leadership in brokering peace in southern Sudan, he could create a peaceful Sudan as a positive legacy — if he acts now.

There are two main areas he could emphasize, beyond existing efforts to get a U.N.-led protection force deployed to Darfur. First, Bush should give Ambassador Richard Williamson, the new envoy to Sudan, whatever he needs to help breathe new life into Sudan’s peace efforts, including a full-time team based in the region and renewed efforts to engage the influential Chinese in advance of the Olympics.

Second, Bush should lead international efforts to impose a cost for perpetrating genocide and obstructing help. The United States should press in the U.N. Security Council for targeted economic sanctions against responsible Sudanese officials, engage the European Union to ban euro-based Sudanese oil transactions, and share intelligence with the International Criminal Court to accelerate indictments of Sudanese officials most responsible for continuing violence.

Former President Bill Clinton has said that he remains haunted by his failure to stop the genocide in Rwanda. That genocide was over in 100 days. Darfur has suffered from a slow-motion genocide-by-attrition for five years. Imagine the regret President Bush will experience if he fails to act now. There is a solution, just like there was in Southern Sudan. The 21st century’s first genocide could still be brought to an end on his watch.

John Prendergast is co-chair of the ENOUGH Project and the Joan B. Kroc Peace Scholar at the University of San Diego. He is also the co-author, with Don Cheadle, of “Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond.”

Peace will not come to Darfur in isolation. If Southern Sudan goes back to war, then there will be no chance for peace in Darfur. If Chad remains on fire, Darfur will continue to burn. If the Lord’s Resistance Army continues to undermine regional security, peace in all of Sudan remains more elusive. And peace will not be lasting in Sudan until there is a more inclusive, democratic governing system in the country.

The Sudan Peace and Democracy Watch is a regular update on efforts to implement the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, achieve a lasting peace for Darfur, and promote the democratic transformation of Sudan.

Last updated by Omer Ismail on February 21, 2008.

1. What is the Comprehensive Peace Agreement?

Signed on January 9, 2005, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement ended the 22-year civil war between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM. The United States worked tirelessly with a regional mediation team from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, and a core group of allies—the United Kingdom, Norway, and Italy—to push the parties toward a final deal and has a significant stake in keeping the CPA on track.

2. What is the Darfur peace process?

Since early in 2004, the international community has engaged in sporadic efforts to negotiate a ceasefire and peace agreement for Darfur. These efforts yielded the Darfur Peace Agreement in 2006, but that flawed agreement led to further fragmentation of the rebel groups and complicated current peacemaking efforts. The current peace process is led jointly by the United Nations and the African Union through a pair of senior diplomats— Jan Eliasson, the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy, and Salim Ahmed Salim, AU Special Envoy on the Darfur Conflict.

3. How are the CPA and the Darfur peace process related?

Negotiating peace in Darfur requires a commitment to implementing the CPA, and vice versa (see ENOUGH report An All Sudan Solution). Interlocking peace agreements which address these power imbalances and lay the groundwork for democratic change are the best chance for an end to cycles of genocide, crimes against humanity, dictatorship, and deadly conflict in Sudan. The challenge for the joint UN/AU negotiating team for Darfur is to broker an agreement that fits within the framework for democratic transformation established by the CPA.

4. Why does ENOUGH support a democratic transformation in Sudan?

By setting forth a timetable for elections, the CPA seeks to give Sudanese citizens significantly more control over how their country is governed. The fundamental cause of war throughout Sudan is the concentration of wealth and absolute power in the hands of unrepresentative elites—principally the ruling National Congress Party, or NCP. The establishment of strong democratic institutions and processes in Sudan will be a key prerequisite for peace because in a free and fair election the NCP would almost certainly lose its firm grip on power. (see ENOUGH report Democracy: A Key to Peace in Sudan).

Legitimate elections have the potential to reshape the distribution of political power at all levels of governance in Sudan. Elections are mandated to take place at six levels of government: the Presidency of the Government of National Unity, the Presidency of the Government of Southern Sudan, the National Assembly in Khartoum, the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly in Juba, 25 State Legislatures, and 25 State Governors.

5. What is the status of CPA implementation?

For two years, the SPLM has expressed frustration at the snail’s pace implementation of the CPA, and blames the NCP for its lack of commitment to peace and the democratic transformation of the country. In October 2007, that frustration led the SPLM to suspend its participation in and recall its ministers from the Government of National Unity. Agreement was reached in late December to return to the Unity government, but critical issues remain unaddressed.

Several critical milestones must be achieved to implement the CPA, the most important of which are resolving the impasse over the oil-rich area of Abyei, carrying out free-and-fair national elections, and completing the referendum on self-determination for Southern Sudan. The cost of failure is immense: a return to war would devastate the South and doom peace efforts in Darfur.

5.1. What is the impasse over Abyei?

Both the SPLM and NCP claim the area of Abyei to be owned by their respective supporters, the Ngok Dinka or the Arab Missairiya. The NCP’s rejection of the July 2005 Abyei Border Commission report—defining the North-South border in the oil-rich area of Abyei—did not bode well for the implementation of the CPA. While the SPLM accepted the commission’s report, the NCP sighted favoritism to the Dinka in that report and consequently denounced it. The NCP’s rejection of the “final and binding report” may have damaging consequences to Sudan’s peace and stability as a whole. It is now the litmus test that will reveal the will of the parties, in particular the NCP, to achieve lasting peace. (see ENOUGH Report Abyei: Sudan’s ‘Kashmir’)

Because of Bashir’s rejection of the Abyei Protocol, the local government provided for in the Protocol has never been set up. And the two percent of revenues generated from oil extracted from the Abyei area remain unavailable to help improve public services in Abyei, further heightening tensions. Although Khartoum’s oil transactions are thoroughly opaque, if reports that the NCP is in a rush to essentially drain those oil deposits geographically subject to the Abyei Protocol are accurate, this could negatively shape Abyei’s economic situation well into the future.

5.2 What is the status of the elections?

One of the fundamental drawbacks to the political transformation in Sudan is the postponement of the census needed for elections in 2009 and the referendum of self-determination for the south in 2011—requisite events for the sustainability of the CPA.

This latest delay of the national census will be added to a long list of unfulfilled promises that reinforce the accusations that the NCP is hardly interested in peace, allegations that negatively affect any attempt to reach a settlement in Darfur. The CPA mandated that the census be undertaken by July 2007 to allow sufficient time to collect, process, and analyze the data before the election. Because of funding delays by the NCP, however, the census date slipped from July 2007 to November 2007, then to February 2008, and most recently to April 2008. If the date slips yet again, the rainy season will prevent the census team from gaining full access to Southern Sudan, to the advantage of the NCP.

The NCP has also made unilateral changes to the census questionnaire that will complicate efforts to determine how many Southern Sudanese live in the North. Because the war was waged in the South, the majority of Sudan’s displaced are Southerners, and between 2 and 4 million are thought to now reside in Northern Sudan. If the census is to accurately determine the number of Northerners and Southerners throughout the entire country, there must be a way to determine the precise number of Southerners who reside in the North and the precise number of Northerners who reside in the South.

Finally, Sudan’s Election Bill was scheduled to be passed by the National Assembly by December 2007, but the Assembly failed to do so. The best case scenario presents major challenges. Even if the law passes in February, the electoral commission established in March, and the election scheduled for March 2009, the commission will only have one year to accomplish the many difficult tasks to hold successful elections.

5.3 What is the future of the self-determination referendum?

The premise of the CPA is that during the six years between the signing of the agreement in 2005 and the self-determination referendum in 2011, the NCP, SPLM, and the agreement’s international guarantors and supporters work to “make unity attractive,” thereby increasing the likelihood that Southerners would vote for national unity. However, given that the war was fought principally in the South and Southerners were the primary victims of a conflict that killed 2 million people, the burden to make unity attractive rests overwhelmingly with the NCP in Khartoum. The clock is ticking, and the NCP must soon demonstrate a real commitment to unity. At this juncture, the chances for a vote for unity seem more remote and Southern independence more probable.

6. What is the status of the Darfur peace talks?

Hopes were high for peace talks that convened in early November in Sirte, Libya. (see ENOUGH Report A Strategy for Success in Sirte) However, the UN/AU joint mediation team made a critical mistake by trying to unify the more than 25 rebel groups and assemble them all in one place without a clearly defined vision for an end state that resonates with Darfur’s civilian population. A critical majority of the rebel groups refused to attend the talks, and mediators delayed the process to get more of the rebels on board. Salim and Eliason lacked a clear strategy on how to bring the rebels to the table, running the risk of dragging the process to a point that renders the attempted solutions unworkable to all parties. With a new U. S. envoy for Sudan, Ambassador Rich Williamson, there is hope that new blood will be injected into the process by getting the United States aggressively involved.

Consultations aimed at reviving the Darfur peace process are sputtering along dual tracks, and missing a crucial third track.

• In Libya, directionless consultations involving some rebel factions and the Government of Sudan continue. In an effort to resuscitate Sirte, the AU/UN mediation kept the lights on by maintaining a scant presence of the parties that attended the opening session. The Libyans are placing high hopes on their efforts to bring back the parties to the table, but it appears that the Libya track will soon reach a dead end.

• The second track must be strengthened immediately: broader consultations with civil society groups in Darfur, including the community leaders among displaced people, women’s groups, and tribal chiefs. Creating such a forum would lead to a wider consensus among Darfurians on the issues that matter the most to them, and to bring to the table the non-rebel component that has been conspicuously absent from the peace process thus far. Critical to the success of this dialogue is the legitimacy of the participants, which should include the Arab tribes who seek a peaceful settlement to the crisis. Mediators must be cognizant, however, that a large number of actors could hamstring the process, and seek to overcome this constraint by presenting concrete proposals.

• The missing track is aggressive shuttle diplomacy—visiting rebel leaders, government officials, and regional actors—using a draft agreement to reinvigorate the talks.

Given such inadequate efforts, it is safe to say that the Darfur Peace Process is stalled. The mediation has nothing new to offer, the Libyans are in Sirte waiting for the rebel groups to show up, and they in turn are waiting for a miracle to put this process back on track. A source very close to the mediation and talking to ENOUGH under condition of anonymity warned that very soon both Salim and Eliason will resign as envoys for the AU and the United Nations because they are both “discouraged, and out of options.” Their futures remain to be seen.

6.1 What are the rebels saying?

Suliman Jamous, a senior figure in the Sudan Liberation Movement/Unity rebel group, commented in a phone interview that the visits to Darfur by Envoys Jan Eliasson and Salim Salim are brief and hardly enough to “finish the greetings.” Jamous accuses the U.N. and AU envoys of spending all of their time in Khartoum speaking with the government but devoting very little time to the rebel groups. “They arrive for less than three hours and rush back under the guise that the window to land in El Fashir airport closes after 6:00 p.m.,” he told ENOUGH.

Moreover, the rebels complained bitterly that the mediation team’s staff stationed in Darfur is not as active as they could be; the rebels say they only see U.N. and AU mediation staff when they serve as advanced teams to their bosses in their sporadic and brief visits to rebel-held areas.

6.2 What are Darfurians saying?

Civil society leaders (and many rebel leaders) want the mediation team to present a draft agreement to begin a new round of discussions. “The time for shuttle diplomacy is over,” says Professor Mahmoud Mousa Mahmoud, a leading Darfurian civil society activist in Khartoum. “We would like to see real engagement with Darfurians of all walks of life, not just the Government of Sudan and the rebel groups.”

When U.N. Envoy Eliasson met in December with rebel leaders and tribal chiefs, he was confronted by the leaders of displaced communities who told him that he is not welcome in Darfur partly because of statements he made about arms in the displaced persons’ camps. One of the camp leaders accused Eliasson of “marketing Khartoum’s false propaganda.” The camp leader continued, “[Eliasson] tries every time he comes to Darfur to distort our cause.” Community leaders reiterated their demand for quick deployment of the U.N./AU peacekeeping force and expressed great skepticism about the viability of Libya as a venue for meaningful peace talks because of the negative influence of Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi.

Inside Darfur, the dialogue between community leaders and civil society organizations continued, creating several networks of leaders who are in regular contact with Darfurians abroad. One such network is the Darfur Working Group, which is headed by prominent community leaders inside Sudan and in the Diaspora. According to Dr. Hamid Ali, “the efforts of the Darfur Working Group are geared toward rallying Darfurians behind a goal of sustainable peace and unity among all ethnic groups.”

6.3 What are Darfurians in the Diaspora saying?

The failure of Sirte resulted in a surge of activity in the Diaspora. In the United States, for instance, the Save Darfur Coalition, the law firm Baker and McKenzie, the Public International Law & Policy Group, and the U.S. Institute for Peace have collectively sponsored two workshops for the Darfurian civil society leaders in the United States. The Darfur Leaders Network benefited from marathon training on negotiations and other skills that yielded six draft documents that cover the issues that are likely to be on the table in the coming rounds of peace talks (where and whenever they convene). Several committees were formed to contact the civil society actors inside Darfur, the rebel groups as well as Darfurian Diaspora elsewhere for a buy-in on these issues, and a wider discussion prior to the next talks.

7. What should the U.S. and the rest of the international community be doing now to ensure peace and democracy in Sudan?

The international community must adopt a comprehensive approach to Sudan’s conflicts with the following objectives:

• Negotiate an inclusive peace deal in Darfur: Mediators should develop a clear end state for the talks and put together a draft agreement that can spur debate and demonstrate to Darfurians that the U.N. and AU process will actually address the core issues that must be dealt with in Darfur. After developing the draft, mediators should undertake rounds of shuttle diplomacy to begin to present the draft to stakeholders in the field, including key civil society and political leaders who have thus far been left out of the process.

To support its newly named Special Envoy, Ambassador Rich Williamson, the United States should authorize two deputies—one for Darfur and one for the CPA—and back these senior diplomats with a full-time team based in the region. The other countries with significant leverage—notably China, the U.K., and France—must deploy high-level diplomatic teams to press hard on both on Darfur and the CPA. To coordinate efforts and amplify leverage, China, the U.K., France, and the United States should form a “Quartet” in support of peace in Sudan.

• Implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement: As implementation falters, there must be penalties for non-compliance with the CPA timetable. The U.N. Security Council endorsed the CPA and key Security Council members helped negotiate it. The Security Council should consider targeted sanctions against those NCP officials who are most responsible for obstructing the agreement’s implementation. If the Council cannot reach a consensus on punitive measures (which will likely be rejected by China and Russia), the United States and the European Union should consider appropriate, coordinated responses and encourage the AU and Arab League to join in demanding implementation of this critical peace deal.

In the meantime, the international community must end its endless hand-wringing and take the necessary steps to protect civilians and hold the government of Sudan responsible for its destabilizing and criminal behavior.

• Deploy peacekeepers to protect civilians: The United States, the U.K., France, and China, as leading members of the U.N. Security Council, and in coordination with the United Nations, the AU, and the broader international community, should work together to ensure that the UNAMID peacekeeping mission in Darfur and the EUFOR and MINURCAT (U.N. Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad) peacekeeping missions in Chad/CAR (Central African Republic) are immediately and fully deployed. (See ENOUGH reports How to Get the UN/AU Hybrid Force Deployed to Darfur and A Race Against Time in Eastern Chad.

• Impose targeted sanctions: The United States, France, and the U.K. should work with China and Russia to introduce immediately a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing targeted sanctions on senior Sudanese officials responsible for supporting the overthrow of a neighboring sovereign government, for obstructing the deployment of international protection forces in Chad and Darfur, and for continuing to promote violence in Darfur.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 (Reuters) – An oil-rich region straddling northern and southern Sudan remains a potential trouble spot three years after the signing of a peace deal that ended decades of civil war, a U.N. envoy said on Tuesday.

The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement was a historic north-south pact that ended two decades of civil war and promised southerners a referendum in 2011 on whether to split from Sudan and form their own country.

Tensions have worsened recently in the north-south border region due to the failure of Khartoum and the former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM, party that now leads the south to reach an agreement on the demarcation of the boundary of Abyei, the source of much of Sudan’s energy reserves.

“The situation in the Abyei area has not changed materially … and the area remains a potential flash point for the resumption of conflict,” U.N. special envoy to Sudan, Ashraf Qazi, said in the written text of a speech he delivered at a closed-door session of the U.N. Security Council.

The status of Abyei was left unresolved in the 2005 peace deal.

There were clashes around Abyei in December and January between southern troops and Misseriya tribesmen. South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir, said the Misseriya were being supported by elements from the northern Sudanese army.

A report by U.S. human rights group Enough described Abyei in January as “Sudan’s Kashmir” that could spark another civil war if left unresolved.

“The people of Abyei have been denied the dividends of peace since the signing of the CPA,” Qazi said. “They have been deprived of … basic service related to the provision of security, education, health and employment.”

He said the issue of Abyei was the “biggest stumbling block between the two partners” — the SPLM and the National Congress Party, or NCP, of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

The NCP and the SPLM were the two main partners in the power-sharing deal that came out of the 2005 peace deal.

Sudan’s north-south war claimed 2 million lives and drove more than 4 million from their homes. But difficulties implementing the agreement to end the war and continued tensions have been overshadowed by international attention on a newer conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region.

DISPUTE OVER OIL REVENUES

An important dispute concerns the so-called Abyei Boundaries Commission’s report on the demarcation of Abyei’s border, he said. The NCP has rejected it, while the SPLM has accepted it.

That is a crucial issue, Qazi said, because demarcation of the border “will impact on … the national census, elections, sharing of oil revenues and redeployment of forces.”

The issue of Abyei’s oil wealth is especially divisive.

But Qazi said a new ad hoc border commission was expected to begin mapping out suggested frontiers soon and should present its recommendations in the first quarter of 2008.

There are other problem areas.

“Little progress has been made on the issue of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration … largely owing to the atmosphere of political mistrust which provides few incentives for the parties to downsize their armed forces,” Qazi said.

On our last few trips together to visit the refugees and internally displaced on the Sudan-Chad border, nearly everyone we interviewed in the squalid camps identified the Sudanese regime as the main reason for their suffering. As the rainy season was ending in the fall of last year, camp residents warned us of a coming attack from across the Sudan border, in which Chadian rebels — backed by the Sudanese government — would try again to overthrow the government in Chad.

As we went to various embassies to warn of the coming attack, and then back home in Washington, officials told us that the threat was overstated, the Chadian rebels were too disorganized, and the European Union — led by the French — would rapidly deploy a force on the border that would by itself deter any attack.

Of course, they were wrong. Why?

Officials from governments all over Europe, Africa and North America did what they continuously have done for the last 20 years: They underestimated the regime in Khartoum and how far it is willing to go to maintain power.

Let’s review the evidence:

Exhibit A:
A rebellion in southern Sudan since the 1980s led the regime to conduct a brutal scorched-earth campaign in which many of the genocidal tactics it has deployed in Darfur were perfected.

More than 2 million southern Sudanese civilians perished. Now a peace deal brokered in part by the U.S. is at risk, as the regime chooses to not implement key aspects of the agreement and to promote divisions in the south. In neither case were there consequences for the regime.

Exhibit B:
For six years in the 1990s, the Sudanese regime hosted Osama bin Laden and helped incubate the al Qaeda network. When there was finally a consequence from the international community, the regime booted bin Laden out. After 9-11, the regime intensified counterterrorism cooperation with the U.S., buying itself room to go after internal opponents with no consequence.

Exhibit C:
The Sudanese regime commits genocide in Darfur and is manipulating the deployment of a U.N.-led force to protect civilians and undermining peace efforts by further dividing rebel groups. Again, no consequences.

Exhibit D:
The regime has provided military backing to the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army, infamous for brainwashing kidnapped children to become cold killers. Now Sudan prepares once again to rescue the LRA from near-oblivion, as Khartoum will use the LRA’s child soldiers in its efforts to disrupt Uganda’s own peace process. Recently, reports emerged of a vicious LRA attack on civilians in southern Sudan. Yet again, no consequences.

Now, the latest exhibit in Chad:
The Sudanese regime seeks a military solution in Darfur; one element of its strategy is to cut off the supply lines through Chad to the Darfur rebels and to obstruct the deployment of a planned European Union force to the Sudan-Chad border. Overthrowing the Chadian government is the easiest way to do that. The result is another African capital on fire. With no consequences — yet.

But this time there must be consequences. African governments won’t countenance the toppling of one government by another. France will not sit idly by while its client government in Chad is under proxy attack. China, targeted by “Genocide Olympics” campaigners worldwide and stung by Steven Spielberg’s resignation as artistic advisor to the Olympics, is rethinking its blind support for its commercial ally in Khartoum.

Even more important, the U.S. campaign season provides an opportunity for the remaining presidential candidates to elaborate on their more muscular approaches toward Sudan, influencing President Bush as he seeks to define his legacy. Remember, it was the pressures of the 2004 presidential campaign that in part led Bush to name what was happening in Darfur “genocide.” The potential for the candidates to influence action in the White House on this issue is enormous, and Sens. John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama should use the bully pulpit of the campaign trail in the president’s home state of Texas to call for more assertive action by the U.S.

What would that more assertive action look like?

The missing ingredient in the international approach to Sudan and its spillover in Chad is the imposition of consequences.

If the U.S., France and the U.K. can overcome Chinese and Russian objections and work with Beijing and Moscow to impose a series of targeted U.N. Security Council sanctions on responsible Sudanese officials, progress would be swift. If the U.S. and others can provide information to the International Criminal Court so that it can accelerate the bringing of indictments against orchestrators of the violence, and demand the arrest of those already indicted, this will provide leverage for the peace process and the deployment of the U.N.-led protection force.

If there is no cost to the Sudanese regime for attempting to overthrow neighboring governments, committing genocide, supporting child-abducting rebels, reneging on peace deals and blocking U.N. peacekeeping missions, it would be irrational for this regime — using all these tactics to maintain power by any means necessary — to change its behavior.

However, if the international community can finally stiffen its spine and create real consequences for the destruction of a country and the defiance of international norms, peace suddenly will have a chance in Sudan, Chad and northern Uganda.

KALMA, Sudan (AP) — U.N. peacekeepers in armored vehicles and pickup trucks whizzed into this refugee camp. A dozen women came to meet them, bringing their donkeys, water rations and homemade axes.

It was time for one of the refugees’ most perilous tasks: collecting firewood.

Countless refugee women have been assaulted or raped, mostly by Arab janjaweed militiamen, after leaving the relative safety of their camps to gather wood in the open wilderness of Sudan’s Darfur region. Most men don’t even leave the camps because they risk being killed.

But one of the first steps taken by U.N. peacekeepers since they launched their mission in Darfur in January is to restore “firewood patrols” to protect women on their forays outside Kalma, home to 90,000 refugees and one of the region’s largest camps.

The women walking out of Kalma one morning in late January were smiling and waving hellos as their leader, Khadidja Abdallah, came up to greet the peacekeepers who had come to escort them.

It was a stark contrast to nearly a year ago, in May, when an Associated Press reporter first met Khadidja. Then, the “sheikha,” or woman chief, was cowering in a mud hut deep inside Kalma, trying to comfort seven refugee women who had been gang-raped while collecting firewood.

African Union peacekeepers in place then had halted firewood patrols because they felt powerless to stop violence. Khadidja and the woman bitterly complained that the AU force had all but given up on protecting Darfur civilians.

More than 2.5 million people have fled to camps around Darfur in the war between the Arab-dominated Khartoum government and ethnic African rebels. The government is accused of unleashing the janjaweed, who are blamed for widespread atrocities against ethnic African villagers and refugees.

The 7,000-member AU force, in place since 2004, was woefully underequipped and understaffed. The force failed to pacify Darfur, where over 200,000 people have died since fighting broke out in 2003.

The joint U.N.-African mission, known as UNAMID, that has taken its place faces some of the same problems. It is almost entirely composed of the same AU troops, with an additional 2,000 peacekeepers. It could take much of 2008 to reach its planned strength of 26,000. It still lacks the same heavy equipment and air power the AU force needed, top U.N. officials say.

But UNAMID has restored the firewood patrols at Kalma in an attempt to quickly show they can improve security in Darfur.

“Now, it’s every Monday and Thursday,” a grinning Khadidja said of the patrols.

The column of U.N. police cars, pickups and armored personnel carriers escorted the women some 6 miles into the surrounding wasteland to a place known as “the forest,” a comparatively less arid stretch of rocky hills where thorny shrubs grow among a few baobab trees — the same area where the seven women were raped last year.

As the peacekeepers found shade in the rocks, small groups of women chopped branches and raked the ground for stray grass to use as animal fodder. A dozen or so men felt safe enough to come along and share some of the work under Darfur’s unforgiving white sun.

Cattle belonging to Arab nomads appeared from time to time in the distance, but no gunmen were seen.

“I think the fighters here know they can’t challenge us anymore,” said a U.N. officer on the patrol, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance to army regulations. “They know that since the new mandate, we can shoot to protect civilians.”

Peacekeepers hope to spread the firewood patrols to the dozens of camps around Darfur, but have begun with Kalma because incidents of rape and violence there have been among the highest. Located only a few miles from UNAMID’s headquarters, it also allows for patrols with the UNAMID’s current, restricted means.

Even during the firewood patrol, the dangers were still clear. As the peacekeepers began heading back to Kalma in the afternoon, a convoy of government paramilitaries known as the Central Reserve Police Force, rushed by — the force is believed to be largely made up of janjaweed in uniforms.

The heavily armed men glared at the peacekeepers as their pickups sped within inches of the U.N. vehicles.

“Slow down, we really don’t want to collide with them!” an officer yelled in the U.N. patrol cars’ radios.

ABOARD CAPTAIN 1 ON THE NILE RIVER, Sudan (AP) — Dozens of excited refugees leaned over the barge’s railing as it glided up the Nile, marveling at the lush, green swamplands that had replaced the desert of northern Sudan. It was their first sign that they were nearing home.

“I’d forgotten nearly everything,” said Kimo Achajh, 41, who since boyhood has lived in refugee camps around Khartoum, the capital, hundreds of miles north of his birthplace. “The first thing that came back to me are the smells,” he said, inhaling the evening air filled with fragrances of papyrus, water-lilies and muddy floodlands watered by the White Nile.

The Captain 1 and Captain 2, barges lashed together and pushed by a motorboat, had crossed the ill-defined border between north and south Sudan a day earlier, carrying 401 southerners returning home. A few, like Achajh, remembered the south from their childhood, but most on the barge — born in camps in the north — have never seen it.

The two-decade war between southern, ethnic African rebels and the Arab-dominated Islamic government of the north killed over 2 million people, drove some 4 million others from their homes and devastated the south.

This war, separate from the one in Darfur, ended in a 2005 peace deal which set up an autonomous southern government, led by the former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement. The government is pressing for refugees to come back and rebuild their homeland as well as vote in national elections next year and in a referendum on independence in 2011.

But when this group arrived at their destination, the town of Malakal, in mid-January after a nearly weeklong journey, they found a harsh reality: The devastated south is struggling to absorb its returning people.

The 700-mile journey began with a bus ride from Khartoum to the town of Kosti, where the southbound paved road ends. There the returnees — who all belong to the Shilluk ethnic group — boarded the barges chartered by the Office of International Migration, a body that works with the United Nations.

The days on the river passed in excited anticipation of a long dreamed-of homeland.

Younger passengers, raised in the slum conditions of the camps, eagerly listened to elders on the barge describing their cattle-raising life in the Malakal area before the war.

“We want the trees, we want the cows, we want our lives back,” said Nunu, Achajh’s wife. She was nursing her baby, one of more than 100 on board.

“For so many years, we’ve been surviving in Khartoum with the hope of coming back,” said Achajh, whose family fled north during an earlier phase of the war in the 1970s. He sold his belongings to bring his wife and four young children back to the south. He said Khartoum’s policies forcing the mainly Christian and animist southerners to speak Arabic and abide by Islamic law prompted him to come home.

“We want our children to speak English and grow up in a country that is their own,” he told an Associated Press reporter sailing with the group.

Kids passed the time playing on the upper deck, while women cooked fish on charcoal stoves. The vessel was packed with the limited belongings — the equivalent of about five large boxes each — that each passenger was allowed to bring aboard. The voyage was free of charge.

Life adjusted to the slow, lazy rhythm of the river, a vast spread of water and flatlands with only the occasional cluster of trees or riverside fishing villages of mud huts that go up for a few months between floods. Passengers played dominos, or talked at length about their new lives. Women cooked or tended to children, braided hair, washed clothes.

At sunset, younger people would gather on the upper deck, shush the children romping in piles of inflated life vests, and listen to elders recounting tales of the Shilluk tribe. As the night’s cold fell on the barge, families went to sleep on woven mats, 10 to 20 in a cabin, while on the lower deck, girls chanted high-pitched songs and danced in a succession of high, vertical jumps under the attentive gaze of the boys.

Then the barges would tie up for the night, at a village if there was one, otherwise to a tree.

Some 2 million displaced southerners live in camps in northern Sudan, with another 2 million scattered among neighboring countries. Their return is going slower than expected because of refugee worries that war could resume and concerns over the south’s dilapidated state. Only 45,000 from camps in northern Sudan have come back in trips organized by the U.N. and other agencies. Tens of thousands are thought to have come back from abroad, but the exact number is not known.

Excitement mounted on the last night when elders pointed to landmarks of approaching Malakal. Women danced and clapped their hands and men chanted traditional songs of homecoming.

But Malakal turned out to be no promised land.

The passengers expected a welcoming committee, but none was there. When a few officials showed up, the returnees learned that plots of land they had been promised by the government weren’t yet cleared of mines left by the northern army.

A daylong negotiation followed to persuade the passengers to get off the barge. A group of the returnees came ashore and argued with the officials. Some accused the government of seeking to sell their plots of land for profit. U.N. officials reassured them that Malakal is indeed short on land because of the mines, which could take months to clear.

Tempers ran high as returnees’ expectations met the reality of southerners who remained during years of war — some of whom view the refugees as privileged for the safety and aid they received in their camps.

“I spent 21 years in the bush fighting for their freedom. How can they arrive here and complain?” said Dok Gok, Malakal’s deputy governor. He had cut short a meeting with the barge passengers when they demanded a school, a hospital and a camp to wait in until land was cleared.

Sarah Nyanath, from the Social Welfare Ministry, told the returnees they could “go back north” if they weren’t happy.

“They’ve been treated like children, but here we are adults,” she said, telling the returnees she herself doesn’t have her own mud hut and has to stay with relatives. The returnees, she said, should do the same.

Malakal’s population has doubled to more than 150,000 since the peace deal as southerners return. Many squeeze in with relatives — but barely a quarter of residents have running water or electricity.

Despite over $1 billion in aid and a share of Sudan’s oil revenues, southern Sudan has seen little development. The region’s capital, Juba, doesn’t even have a paved road from the airport. There are frequent accusations of corruption among the ruling SPLM, and complaints that the rebels-turned-civil servants lack governing skills.

Among the crowd gathered on the shore were passengers from a previous IOM barge trip in December. They said they felt so unwelcome in Malakal they were ready to go back.

“For years we survived in Khartoum, but it’s even harder here,” said Lucia Peter, a 45-year-old widow with five children. “If I had the money, I’d go back,” she said.

Finally, a local Shilluk politician boarded the barge to convince the returnees to disembark. He made vague promises to follow up on the land issue and offered a cow from his herd to be roasted as a gesture of welcome.

Eventually, the refugees rushed out, carrying their belongings and greeting relatives.

Elderly Banda Amum walked alone down the wobbly plank. His entire family was killed in the war, except his wife, who he said was too weak to accompany him back.

“Now I am old, I have nothing left to wish for,” Amum said, his watery eyes gazing at the lush trees in Malakal. “I just wanted to die where I was born.”

The following is a joint statement on China from the ENOUGH Project, the Save Darfur Coalition, STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition, Genocide Intervention Network and Dream for Darfur:

All nations share in the responsibility to do all they can to help bring an end to the genocide in Darfur, and, after five years of conflict, to help bring peace and security to the people of Sudan. China, though, has a special obligation to respond. China also, more than any other government except Khartoum itself, has the ability to help bring peace and security to the people of Sudan.

China’s responsibility and leverage stem from its intricate economic, military, and diplomatic relationship with Sudan. China is Sudan’s largest trade partner, major military provider, and consistent defender of Sudan’s interests in the United Nations.

This responsibility and leverage also stems from its influence in the world, especially this year. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and as acting President when the UNAMID peacekeeping approach was adopted (for which China took much credit), China is uniquely positioned to see that the role of the UN is effective. And as host of the Olympics this year, and thus temporary custodian of the universal values the Olympics represent, such as peace and cooperation, China has a special duty to ensure that the actions it takes worldwide are consistent with those values.

China did take some helpful actions last year, appointing a special envoy to Sudan, providing military engineers in Darfur, helping with the passage of UNAMID. Yet, at the same time, China’s ties to Khartoum grew closer than ever last year, with a doubling in trade just one example.

Of greatest importance, China’s modest helpful steps have not improved conditions on the ground in Darfur. In fact, the humanitarian and security situation has deteriorated dramatically in recent months, and Sudan has obstructed the deployment of UNAMID to such a degree that it is now entirely unclear whether it can ever be successful. Beyond that, China has been silent while Khartoum has resisted implementing key provisions of the North-South peace agreement, provided support to the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, and contributed to the recent attempt to overthrow the Chadian government by arming and supporting Chadian rebels.

The time for patience with Khartoum is long past gone. Ongoing violence in Sudan and the region, and the fate of millions of displaced Darfurians, demand otherwise.

In particular, given the unparalleled influence China has to affect Sudan’s behavior, we will hold China to a “results-based” test. China should use all the influence at its disposal to press the Sudanese government to a) permit the swift, full and effective deployment of UNAMID; b) implement the North-South peace deal and participate constructively in the Darfur peace process; and c) allow the unfettered delivery of humanitarian aid in Darfur and Eastern Chad. China will only pass this test once Sudan has acted accordingly in all three areas.

To move Sudan, behind-the-scenes pressure by China is appropriate, and is consistent with how the Chinese government prefers to operate. But in addition to private pressure, these other steps should also be taken by China to change the approach of Khartoum and move towards peace and security in Darfur. China should:

1. Immediately provide half of the transport helicopters that UNAMID requires, with support from Europe and the United States for maintenance and contracting arrangements.

2. Support punitive measures, such as UN Security Council targeted sanctions, against Khartoum officials, until peace and security for Darfur is achieved. UN targeted sanctions should be imposed immediately against government, rebel, or militia officials who are responsible for undermining UNAMID’s deployment, the North-South peace deal, or regional stability, such as attempting to overthrow the government in neighboring Chad.

3. Verifiably suspend all military cooperation with the Khartoum regime, including weapons transfers, until peace and security for Darfur is achieved.

4. Work with the United States, France, and the United Kingdom in a quartet supporting UN and African Union initiatives in Darfur, Southern Sudan, and Chad. This cooperative work on the peace process needs to be comprehensive. The problems of Darfur, Southern Sudan, and Chad are intertwined, so unless peace is advanced on all of these fronts it will be unlikely to be achieved on any of these fronts.

WASHINGTON — Steven Spielberg said Tuesday that he was withdrawing as an artistic adviser to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, after almost a year of trying unsuccessfully to prod President Hu Jintao of China to do more to try to end Sudan’s attacks in the Darfur region.

Mr. Spielberg’s decision, and the public way he announced it, is a blow to China, which has said that its relationship with Sudan should not be linked to the Olympics, which have become a source of national pride.

In a statement sent to the Chinese ambassador and the Beijing Olympic committee on Tuesday, Mr. Spielberg said that his “conscience will not allow me to continue with business as usual.”

“Sudan’s government bears the bulk of the responsibility for these ongoing crimes but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more to end the continuing human suffering there,” the statement said. “China’s economic, military and diplomatic ties to the government of Sudan continue to provide it with the opportunity and obligation to press for change.”

Responding to Mr. Spielberg’s action, a spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in Washington said, “As the Darfur issue is neither an internal issue of China nor is it caused by China, it is completely unreasonable, irresponsible and unfair to link the two as one.”

Mr. Spielberg had written to Mr. Hu about Darfur twice in the past 10 months, his spokesman said, taking China to task for its “silence” while Sudan blocked the deployment of international peacekeepers and expelled aid workers from the region.

In September, Mr. Spielberg also met with China’s special envoy to Darfur at the Chinese mission to the United Nations, said Mr. Spielberg’s spokesman, Andy Spahn.

None of those efforts yielded the results Mr. Spielberg wanted, Mr. Spahn said. In the meantime, Mr. Spielberg had come under increasing pressure from advocates working on Darfur, including a campaign by the actress Mia Farrow, to drop his association with the Beijing Olympics.

After receiving word that Mr. Spielberg had done just that, Ms. Farrow was jubilant.

“His voice and all of the moral authority it gives, used this way, brings a shred of hope to Darfur, and God knows, rations of hope are meager at this time,” said Ms. Farrow, a good-will ambassador for the Unicef who helped start a campaign last year to label the Games in Beijing the “Genocide Olympics.”

The actor Don Cheadle, a co-founder of Not On Our Watch, a Darfur advocacy group, said he hoped that Mr. Spielberg’s actions would force China to rethink its position. “One guy like Steven in a position like that is like 100 other guys,” he said. “Those are the kinds of moves, that if they catch fire, and other people think of boycotting, or refraining, the cumulative effect could be something that potentially could change the calculation of that government.”

Mr. Spahn said Mr. Spielberg planned to encourage others to do more to pressure China on Darfur, but he did not offer details. Advocates said they hoped to enlist help from corporate sponsors of the Olympics.

China has fought attempts to link Darfur to the Olympics, but it has also responded at times to the pressure.

Last year, shortly after Mr. Spielberg’s first letter to Mr. Hu, China dispatched a senior official to Sudan to push the government to accept a peacekeeping force and appointed a special envoy.

But the Sudanese military has continued its attacks there, as recently as last week.

David M. Halbfinger contributed reporting from Los Angeles.

In light of the recent security meltdown in Chad and the brutal February 8 attack on Darfuri civilians by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and allied Janjaweed militia, Africa Action calls for heightened U.S. diplomatic pressure to expedite the full deployment of the hybrid United Nations (UN)-African Union (AU) peacekeeping force known as UNAMID to Darfur and pursue truly comprehensive political solutions to all Sudan’s conflicts.

The complete absence of any security and disastrous humanitarian conditions along the Chad-Sudan border illustrate that now, more than ever, sustained, wide-ranging international engagement at the highest levels is necessary to honor the international commitment to protect the populations of these regions and address their overlapping conflicts.

On Friday, February 8, Khartoum launched an attack on three towns in West Darfur, north of the regional capital El Geneina, which local and international observers described as “the worst in many, many months.” Antonov aircraft, helicopter gunships and horse-mounted militia accompanied by Sudanese troops and land vehicles descended on the towns of Abu Suruj, Sirba and Sileah with an intensity that evoked the gristly, large-scale government-orchestrated attacks common during the early days of the genocide in 2004. The UN states that 12,000 Darfuris were forced to flee across the nearby border to Chad. Thousands more have been left without shelter, sustenance or protection. Human Rights Watch puts the death toll at over 150, and estimates that 160,000 people in West Darfur have been cut off from humanitarian aid as a result of the attacks. Aid workers report that Abu Suruj and Sirba have both been partially burned to the ground. While Sudanese military leaders claimed that the assault was directed at Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebels, known to draw support from the region, all accounts of the offensive report that civilians were the major targets.

This new violence occurs in an environment along the Chad-Sudan border that can only be described as toxic to the well being of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), Sudanese and Chadian alike. Around 280,000 Sudanese have already fled to eastern Chad, and the capacity of the UN and international aid agencies to support this burgeoning population is overwhelmed. Internal displacement and chaos resulting from the fierce fighting of the past two weeks between Chadian soldiers and rebel groups has resulted in President Idriss Deby’s government announcing that Chad will not accept any more refugees from Darfur, leaving these already homeless civilians with even fewer options to escape future government attacks.

President Bush has repeatedly emphasized his “concern” for these communities, a position last echoed by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack in reference to the estimated 200,000 Darfuris displaced by last weekend’s attack. The beginning of 2008 has seen an upsurge in U.S. diplomatic engagement with Khartoum, including a new Bush-appointed Special Envoy for Sudan, Richard Williamson, meetings between senior Africa diplomat Jendayi Frazier and Sudanese officials, and a visit on Monday, February 11 to Sudan by Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte. While these efforts show promise, Africa Action notes that unless they are followed up with vigorous, sustained and proactive U.S. diplomatic engagement with Khartoum and other key countries at the UN Security Council, circumstances on the ground will not change.

As outlined in this recent Africa Action report, Khartoum has successfully obstructed the deployment of the 26,000-person UNAMID peacekeeping force that UN Security Council Resolution 1769 authorized in July 2007. This pattern of resistance by the Omar Al-Bashir-led National Congress Party (NCP) regime can be overcome by concerted international pressure, as demonstrated by Sudan’s recent accession to sign a UN-requested Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that will allow UNAMID the legal freedom of movement it needs to deploy and operate effectively. Yet Khartoum has repeatedly broken its promises in the past, and will continue to do so unless faced with the credible threat of international consequences.

The U.S. must lead this multilateral response, using its diplomatic clout to encourage European countries to apply punitive sanctions against the NCP regime and to pressure China to remove its support of the genocidaires. Another key impediment to UNAMID’s deployment has been the unwillingness of the international community to provide the helicopters the operation requires. Bangladesh and Ethiopia’s recent announcements they would contribute a handful of vehicles to meet this demand constitute a minor landmark, one that the U.S. must seize as an opportunity to use diplomatic pressure and financial support to generate contributions of the remaining absent helicopters. Persistent yet forceful diplomacy by high-level U.S. diplomats will be vital to ensuring that these forces, once offered by the international community, actually get on the ground over Khartoum’s inevitable stall tactics.

As essential as the immediate deployment of a fully equipped UN-commanded peacekeeping force is to the people of Darfur, Africa Action recognizes that a sustainable solution to this crisis relies just as much on a political peace process. UNAMID’s deployment and an inclusive political peace process that engages Darfuri rebel groups, the Sudanese government and civil society must unfold together in order to be effective. Africa Action calls for U.S. leadership to make particular efforts to include women in all restarted political negotiations. The absence of sufficient participation by women leaders was one major flaw in the stillborn 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) and recent peace treaties for conflicts in other regions of Sudan. As put forward in the Sudanese Women Declaration on Darfur released at the January 2008 African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, women community leaders should “engage fully and effectively with the Darfur peace process” including regular reports to “the AU and other relevant institutions on all issues of concern for women in Darfur.”

Africa Action also stands in solidarity with the call issued by this declaration that Darfuri women engage in regular dialogue with women leaders from across other regions of Sudan. The Bush administration and the international community should both support this channel of communication and model their own diplomatic tactics on a similarly comprehensive approach to Sudan’s multiple conflicts. As Africa Action explains in this December 2007 report, the U.S. must not prioritize protection and peace for Darfur at the expense of supporting resolution to Sudan’s other conflicts, particularly the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended Sudan’s North-South civil war. Over the past two weeks, international attention was focused on the government-rebel battles in Chad and the atrocities in West Darfur while largely ignoring troubling events affecting the fragile North-South peace.

Violence between Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) forces, Misseriya nomads and Sudanese government troops loyal to President Bashir has persisted around the North-South border city of Abyei since December 2007. Despite calls from SPLM/A leadership to avoid fighting, tensions in this region are high. Due to its oil wealth, Abyei remains a point of contestation between the SPLM/A and the Bashir regime in Khartoum. An escalation of this conflict could set off further unraveling of the CPA, with devastating consequences for Sudan as a whole. Africa Action urges the U.S. to engage with all parties to resolve the deadlock around Abyei on the terms agreed to in the binding 2005 Boundary Commission report.

Similarly, the Bush administration should pressure Khartoum to move forward on the process of electoral reform begun this past weekend by the National Constitutional Review Commission in order to meet the April 2008 deadline for the national census that is a vital prerequisite for the 2009 national elections stipulated by the CPA. If the U.S.-led international community fails to achieve progress on the implementation of these key CPA provisions, not only does the North-South conflict risk a return to civil war, but Sudan as a whole will miss the opportunity for democratic elections that might usher in a more representative democratic government.

A high level Sudanese delegation to Washington earlier this February returned to Khartoum with the report that the normalization of Sudanese relations with the U.S. depends on the resolution of the Darfur crisis. This demonstrates that despite Sudan’s increased trade with China, the U.S. still holds leverage valued by the NCP, not to mention the SPLM/A officials in Sudan’s Bashir-dominated “Government of National Unity.” Africa Action urges the Bush administration to follow through on its rhetoric by taking Khartoum to task on UNAMID deployment and devoting maximum diplomatic capital to reengaging an inclusive peace process for Darfur as well as pursuing solutions to Sudan’s other conflicts. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley stated on February 4, 2008 that the U.S. is “leading international efforts to help stop the genocide in Darfur.” President Bush must honor this commitment, in response to the pleas of the United Nations, recent demands by Members of Congress from both parties and above all the great need and suffering of the people of Darfur.

DAKAR, Senegal — Thousands of refugees fleeing attacks by Arab militias and Sudanese Army bombs in the ravaged western region of Darfur have flooded into neighboring Chad, the United Nations said Sunday, and many more may be on their way as Sudan strikes back at a rebel offensive in the area.

The attacks throw a region sundered by conflict into still deeper chaos as a volatile mix of rebels, government forces and ethnic militias jockey to control a vast and unforgiving stretch of semidesert that straddles the two troubled countries. Just a week ago, Chadian rebels based in Sudan tried to topple Chad’s government, making it all the way to the gates of the presidential palace in Ndjamena before being beaten back.

Making matters worse, the rebel group that had controlled the part of Darfur under attack, the Justice and Equality Movement, warned the new United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force not to enter the area. The rebels said that the area was an active war zone and that any armed group, including peacekeepers, would be considered hostile and fair game.

“There is no cease-fire, the war is going on,” said Suleiman Sandal Haggar, a senior commander with the rebel group, in an interview via satellite phone. “In this situation it is very difficult to talk about peacekeeping when there is no peace to keep.”

About 6,000 Sudanese reached the border town of Birak in Chad, said Helen Caux, a spokeswoman for the United Nations refugee agency, and a roughly equal number gathered in a nearby village. The first wave consisted mainly of men. An unknown number of women and children, for whom the voyage on foot is much slower and more deadly, followed, the refugees told the United Nations.

“They are destitute and terrified,” Ms. Caux said.

The new arrivals will join the 240,000 Sudanese refugees already in Chad, and a nearly equal number of Chadians who have been displaced by chaos along the border. The influx pushes the number of people in eastern Chad dependent on an already overstretched aid operation toward half a million.

The refugees told United Nations officials of a terrifying assault by Arab militiamen, who arrived on horseback and in trucks, descending on the towns of Sirba, Suleia and Abu Surouj, north of the provincial capital, Geneina, near the border with Chad.

The attacks were apparently an attempt by the Sudanese government to check the advance of the Justice and Equality Movement, which has been gathering strength recently. Once the smallest of the Darfur rebel groups, it has been growing in size and influence, in large part because of its high-level clan links to Chad’s president, Idriss Déby, who is its patron and ally.

The new fighting will further complicate the long-awaited deployment of a United Nations and African Union joint peacekeeping force in Darfur. It officially began its work on Dec. 31, but has been plagued by logistical problems and stonewalling by the Sudanese government.

Speaking to the United Nations Security Council last week after a visit to the region, Jean-Marie Guéhenno, the top United Nations peacekeeping official, warned that “what we are witnessing is actually a war with offensive, counteroffensive fighting.”

Jan Eliasson, the United Nations mediator in the region, told the Security Council that “over the last few months, the security and humanitarian situation in Darfur and the region has dramatically deteriorated.”

The morass of conflict engulfing the region has become more complex and difficult to control since it first grabbed the world’s attention in 2003, when the Arab-dominated government of Sudan unleashed tribal militias known as the janjaweed on non-Arab rebel groups in Darfur. The rebels were seeking greater autonomy and a larger share of Sudan’s wealth.

The government-allied militias carried out a brutal counterinsurgency that President Bush and others said was genocide. At least 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur, according to published mortality surveys, and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes.

The Sudanese government has denied that accusation and has said the death toll has been exaggerated.

Since then, the violence has ricocheted into Chad, where ethnic and political tensions mirror those of Darfur. Some of the rebel groups have close ties to Mr. Déby and are allowed to operate freely in Chad. Sudan has retaliated by helping Chadian rebels trying to topple Mr. Déby, according to analysts and diplomats.

Meanwhile, within Sudan, the Darfur rebel groups have splintered and fought among themselves. Some of the Arab militias loyal to the government have also switched sides in the fight more than once.

One result has been a free-for-all that looks less like the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, to which the Darfur conflict has often been compared, and more like a grim combination of the cross-border war that engulfed Congo and its neighbors in the wake of Rwanda’s agony and the warlord-ruled chaos of Somalia.

Chadian rebels, meanwhile, said Sunday that they were on the offensive once again, after being routed by government troops and forced to retreat from the capital, Ndjamena.

In a statement posted on a rebel-linked Web site, Ali Ordjo Hemchi, a spokesman for the alliance of three rebel groups seeking to overthrow President Déby, said that the group had taken control of the crossroads town of Am Timan, and seized a cache of weapons and dozens of vehicles.

UNITED NATIONS — Two senior United Nations officials on Friday gave the Security Council a grim account of the situation complicating international efforts to protect civilians in Darfur, the Sudanese region where 200,000 have died and 2.5 million have been chased from their homes.

The officials said that deployment of United Nations peacekeeping forces continued to be stalled and that rebel groups showed little willingness to enter peace talks.

Jan Eliasson, the special envoy for Darfur, said the present impasse could cause the people of Darfur, particularly those in overcrowded camps, to lose confidence in the ability of the United Nations to help them.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno, the under secretary general for peacekeeping, warned that if Darfurians “see that we cannot meet their expectations — and their expectations are very high — then I think they will be in a very difficult situation.”

Mr. Eliasson said that the fragmented rebel groups fighting the government had merged into five identifiable groups, but that only two of them were willing to consider even the preparatory steps to peace negotiations.

“Prospects for quick agreements on common positions and a negotiation team appear dim,” he said.

He added that “while the people of Darfur cannot wait forever, we will have to accept that the steps towards an eventual peace agreement will be incremental and will take longer than we have initially hoped.”

The two men said that continued violence undermined United Nations efforts and that the current clashes between Chad and Chadian rebel groups based across the border in Sudan were a threat to the entire region.

Mr. Guéhenno said the international peacekeeping force for Darfur urgently needed a decision by the government in Khartoum to permit the participation of critical military units from Thailand and Nepal. Only a third of the anticipated 26,000 members of the force — a joint effort by the United Nations and the African Union — are in Darfur, and the government has been objecting to the participation of non-African troops.

Mr. Guéhenno said that the force was “predominately African,” as the Security Council resolution authorizing it had specified, but that it could not be “exclusively African,” as Sudan seemed to be insisting, and still be able to fulfill its mission.

Mr. Guéhenno said some progress was being made on the operating arrangements for the new force, but that still missing were agreements giving it full freedom of movement at all hours and visas for contractors.

The force also lacked the 18 tactical and six attack helicopters it needs, despite a loan promised this week of a small number of aircraft from Ethiopia. “Darfur is a vast area, and we must have the ability to quickly move troops to strategic points,” Mr. Guéhenno said.

The parties to the January 2005 comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) ending the long-running north-south civil war in Sudan still face major challenges in implementing the deal, despite the recent resolution of a stand-off between the two sides, the United Nations says in a new report.

Commending Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and the country’s First Vice-President Salva Kiir for resolving their differences through dialogue, the report from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon states that the CPA will only stay on track if the two sides implement their mutually agreed decisions as pledged.

“Although the Government of National Unity has been restored, its resilience will depend on its ability to ensure sustained implementation of the Agreement,” he writes, noting that the two sides have failed to meet the deadlines for the redeployment of forces.

“In the absence of a demarcated boundary, the two sides continue to dispute each other’s presence in certain areas. It is extremely important to complete the redeployment of forces.”

Signed in 2005, the CPA ended the 21-year war between the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) that killed at least two million people and displaced 4.5 million others.

Mr. Ban says more progress is needed on the formation of joint integrated units of the SAF and the SPLA, particularly if the people of Southern Sudan vote for unity in a referendum scheduled for 2011.

But he stresses that one of the most critical challenges ahead remains the issue of Abyei, a disputed region between north and south.

“Since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the region has had no administrative governance structures and the local population is therefore deprived of basic services. I am extremely concerned about the recent clashes between SPLA and local tribes in the area. Those clashes have resulted in considerable loss of life and challenged the fragile peace on the ground.”

The Secretary-General calls for a two-pronged approach to Abyei that includes political dialogue between the Government and the SPLA and the stabilization of the situation on the ground between the local traditional communities.

In addition, the demarcation of the overall north-south boundary must be resolved as a matter of priority, he writes, as the ongoing delays have implication for other matters, such as the census, elections and power- and wealth-sharing arrangements.

The United States has made a high-level appeal to Sudan to halt any help it may be giving to rebels menacing the Chadian capital, N’Djamena. Remaining U.S. diplomats in Chad have left the embassy for the safety of the French-protected international airport.

Bush administration officials are discounting Sudanese denials of involvement in the rebel offensive, and are calling on the Khartoum government to do all it can to curb the rebels and end the Chad fighting, which has added to the instability of the region.

Sudan has long been accused of sheltering and providing arms to the rebels and Chadian authorities alleged Sunday that Sudanese forces had provided air support for rebel attacks on government positions.

At a news briefing, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States has expressed its concern over the situation to the highest levels of the Sudanese government:

“We have gone in at very high levels of the Sudanese government to say that if there is any support from the Sudanese government to these rebels that that should end immediately, and that any influence they might have with the rebels they should use in order to tell them to withdraw,” said Sean McCormack. “We’ve done this at the highest level of our embassy in Khartoum directly into the presidency as well as the ministry of foreign affairs.”

In a statement Saturday, the State Department joined the African Union in condemning what it said was an attempt by rebels, entering from outside the country, to seize power in Chad. It appealed for calm and an immediate end to armed attacks.

Spokesman McCormack confirmed that the U.S. diplomatic staff in N’Djamena abandoned the embassy compound amid gunfire over the weekend in the city center.

Non-essential members of the U.S. embassy staff, along with the families all U.S. officials based in Chad, have been evacuated.

Only four U.S. diplomats, including Ambassador Louis Nigro, remain on duty – based temporarily at the N’Djamena international airport, which is being protected by French troops.

The evacuation of the embassy in Chad was the first incident of its kind in many years, perhaps since 1979 when Iranian militants took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran after Iran’s Islamic revolution.

McCormack said the premises in N’Djamena were secured according to emergency procedures, which presumably include the destruction of classified documents and equipment.

The spokesman said the embassy compound remains sovereign U.S. territory under international law and said if rebels or others have entered the buildings, they should leave immediately.

The State Department Saturday warned Americans to defer non-essential travel to Chad because of the security situation, and urged those already there to consider departing.

McCormack said several hundred private U.S. citizens are believed to be in Chad, and that about 100 had availed themselves of evacuation flights in the last few days.

DUREIJ, Sudan — Their clocks are set on Beijing time, they use state-of-the-art equipment and — most of all — they are welcome by the Sudanese government. In just about everything, the Chinese peacekeeping contingent in Darfur is strikingly different from the rest of the U.N. mission here.

The 140 Chinese engineers and troops deployed in Darfur were among the first reinforcements sent by the United Nations, which took over peacekeeping in the western Sudanese region in January. The Sudanese government quickly approved the Chinese contingent, even as it vetoed contributions from other countries because they were not African — including a Scandinavian engineering corps.

The Chinese deployment comes amid accusations by human rights activists that China is partly responsible for Darfur’s chaos because of its staunch diplomatic backing of the Sudanese government.

Five years of fighting between the Sudan’s Arab-dominated government and Darfur’s ethnic African rebels has killed over 200,000 people and chased 2.5 million to refugee camps, largely black African civilians. Arab militias allied with the government have been blamed for many of the atrocities; the government denies backing them.

Energy-hungry China is Sudan’s key political and economic ally, investing in the country and importing over two-thirds of its oil output, estimated at about 500,000 barrels daily. Since fighting broke out in Darfur in 2003, it repeatedly used its veto power in the U.N. Security Council to prevent tough measures against Sudan.

London-based Amnesty International said in a report last year that China was ignoring a U.N. arms embargo on Darfur by continuing to deliver weapons to the Sudanese government, which can then ship them to its wartorn western province. China denied the allegations.

At the airport in Nyala, capital of South Darfur, the Sudanese military has for years parked several Chinese-made fighter jets. An Associated Press reporter has repeatedly seen them operate in Darfur despite a U.N. ban on military flights over the region.

Because of those ties, some Darfur rebel groups don’t view the Chinese as neutral peacekeepers and have opposed their deployment. There have also been rebel attacks on Chinese-owned oil fields near Darfur.

“We’ll be watching all of them very closely,” said one rebel in Nyala, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he operates covertly in a government-held town.

Li-Cheng wen, China’s ambassador to Sudan, dismissed the rebel concerns.

“We hope these groups won’t misunderstand the role and the neutrality of the Chinese,” he told the AP as he inspected the Chinese troops at a U.N. base near Nyala.

He argued that China’s economic cooperation does more to pacify Sudan than trade sanctions — such as those inflicted by the United States.

“The Darfur problem is not caused by China,” said Li-Cheng. “We have strongly invested in Sudan and this benefits the prosperity and stability of the country.”

Beijing trumpets its peacekeeping mission to Sudan and other countries as evidence of its growing international role. At the same time, it remains uncomfortable with such interventions and emphasizes that it participates in missions only with the approval of local governments.

Activists want China to use its influence to facilitate the deployment of all necessary U.N. equipment and troops. The mission so far has some 9,000 troops and police — less than half the 26,000 planned to pacify a region nearly the size of France. Most are under-equipped African units, and U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno has repeatedly said the force could fail without urgent help.

Despite months of pleas, U.N. officials say wealthy Western nations have so far failed to send some of the equipment the mission needs, such as helicopters.

They blame Sudan’s government for most of the delays, saying the government is stalling on issuing visas to some U.N. staff and still not agreeing on a Status of Forces Agreement that allows peacekeepers to operate.

U.N. officials say the mission needs equipment and expertise that African countries cannot provide, but Sudan has resisted offers from outside the continent.

Actress Mia Farrow, who is spearheading a campaign for China to push Sudan to stop obstructing the U.N. deployment, believes the Chinese unit is a “smoke screen to hide what’s not happening in Darfur,” referring to the stumbling U.N. operation.

“China could do much more,” she said.

Still, activists hope China will budge because it wants to burnish its image ahead of the summer Olympic Games in Beijing. They say recent comments by Liu Guijin, China’s special envoy for Darfur, who has called on Sudan to cooperate with the international community, are positive.

Politically cautious, China prefers to send medical and engineering troops rather than soldiers who might find themselves in the line of fire.

At the U.N. base, sparkling white Chinese bulldozers, shovels and armed personnel carriers are among the largest U.N. gear that Sudanese customs has allowed into Darfur. The Chinese peacekeepers are friendly with the Nigerian troops sharing their base, who say they were impressed by daily karate routines of the Chinese.

The Chinese emphasize they haven’t come to Darfur to fight. At the moment, they are building a large new base where the U.N. mission plans to house some troops.

Nearby, Chinese troops built bulletproof barriers around the compound, as Chinese armored personnel carriers scattered across the arid landscape provided protection.

“The work here should take us many months before reinforcements arrive,” said Maj. Chen, who was supervising the construction. He said the contingent will reach a total of 315 Chinese in coming months.

On February 27, 2004, in the Tawilla area of North Darfur, 30 villages were burned to the ground, over 200 were people killed, over 200 girls and women raped (some by up to 14 assailants at a time, in front of their soon-to-be-murdered husbands and fathers), and 150 women and 200 children were abducted. The man who directed this atrocity–and many others of similar barbarity–was Musa Hilal, the most notorious of the Janjaweed militia leaders who have done the genocidal bidding of Khartoum’s National Islamic Front regime for the past five years. The U.S. State Department has publicly identified Hilal as one of six figures most responsible for the Darfur genocide; Human Rights Watch has labeled him the central Janjaweed leader in atrocity crimes. The brutal attack in Tawilla was part of a systematic campaign by the Janjaweed militias, including those led by Hilal, to “change the demography of Darfur and empty it of African tribes,” as Hilal explained in a memo sent to his commanders and to Khartoum’s intelligence services.

And so it follows that Musa Hilal has been appointed to an important position within the Khartoum regime. Hilal now serves as senior advisor to the Ministry of Federal Affairs, which coordinates the regime’s relations with outlying regions of Sudan as well as with the country’s myriad tribal groups. It works closely with the Interior Ministry to guide most of the government’s major economic and military decisions. The position is designed to help Hilal consolidate his authority throughout Darfur, allowing him to wield the power of Khartoum in controlling the decisions by, and incentives for, Arab groups contemplating joining–or defecting–from Khartoum’s counter-insurgency campaign. While he holds this position, he is still subject to U.N. sanctions for his previous atrocities and will very likely be charged with numerous crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC) when its prosecutors announce their next set of indictments in the coming weeks.

Why would Khartoum make an appointment guaranteed to incense the international community, however impotent that ire may prove to be? There can hardly be any doubt that the regime takes grim pleasure in offending Western human rights sensibilities. Take the example of Ahmed Haroun, the former State Minister of the Interior. Since being indicted by the ICC for numerous crimes against humanity in Darfur–including publicly directing the Janjaweed to “kill the Fur” tribespeople in the ravaged Mukjar area of West Darfur–he has served as the State Minister of Humanitarian Affairs; sits on a Khartoum-appointed commission to investigate human rights abuses in Darfur; and functions as the regime’s liaison with the UN/African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). It is difficult to say which of these appointments is the most grotesquely ironic.

But Hilal’s appointment is more about Khartoum’s internal strategy than it is a jab at the sensitivities of the international community. In a critical development over the past year, Arab tribal groups–even those such as the Mahamid clan to which Hilal belongs–have become deeply disaffected with the Khartoum regime. Many Arab tribal groups, though a minority in Darfur, have provided soldiers for Khartoum’s genocidal violence. They have been paid primarily in the form of booty from villages they have destroyed, and have counted on the “changed demography” that Hilal encouraged as a way of sustaining their nomadic way of life. But Arab groups are increasingly feeling that they have been betrayed by Khartoum–in particular, that the land they have been promised has gone to too few. The vast majority of African villages have been destroyed, and there is little left to loot. So, while the majority of Arab groups have attempted to stay neutral in the conflict, all now suffer from the consequences of the scorched-earth policies that have been central to the regime’s tactics in confronting the rebellion.

As a consequence, some Janjaweed have simply left the genocidal campaign, attempting to resume their former lives or make their way as bandits; others have actively switched their support to the rebel groups. It was precisely to stanch these losses that Hilal was appointed. Khartoum well knows that if their Arab militia allies continue to changes sides–and they give strong evidence of doing so–then military control of any but the major towns of Darfur will be impossible. To Khartoum, the situation is a military problem, so they have appointed a military man to solve it.

Armed struggle, however, may not be the most pressing concern for civilian Darfuris. This fall, the harvests across Darfur were disastrous, and as the broader agricultural economy continues its collapse, markets that once thrived and defined the economic geography of Darfur no longer exist; the traditional opportunities for bartering and trade have been largely lost. A way of life that was in key respects symbiotic has been destroyed. Tens of thousands of displaced Africans from Darfur are predicted to migrate to camps for displaced persons in the coming months–not for security, as has been the case, but for food. Many within the nomadic Arab populations will inevitably follow.

The appointment of a military man like Musa Hilal will do nothing to address these humanitarian concerns, which currently pose the greatest threat to civilians throughout Darfur, African and Arab alike. On the contrary, years of concerted violence have turned vast regions of Darfur into wastelands that are unable to sustain anything resembling the previous agricultural economy. This is Khartoum’s unspeakably grim “genocide by attrition.”

To be sure, there may be little reason to believe that Hilal will be able to re-enlist the support of the Arab tribes who have made up the Janjaweed militias. In fact, the Northern Rizeigat, to which Hilal’s Mahamid belong, have little influence among Arab groups in southern Darfur, with which they have clashed violently in recent months. So Hilal constitutes Khartoum’s bid for a kind of savage insurance policy on the success of its genocide.

Though the appointment of a war criminal like Hilal to serve as the regime’s liaison with the various populations of Darfur is certainly reprehensible, the decision is more significant as an illustration of how viciously desperate the regime’s grip on power has become. Khartoum is frantically trying to undermine UNAMID’s efforts to bring humanitarian aid and restore peace in Darfur. Hilal–the most ruthless and powerful of their Arab militia allies in Darfur, the most skilful in mobilizing Arab support for Khartoum’s genocidal endeavor–is one of the last cards they have left. At the same time, domestic political pressure on Khartoum appears to be rising in all quarters. The appointment of Hilal is part of the regime’s last desperate attempt to complete the Darfur genocide before domestic and international pressures have any chance to bring about regime change.

Eric Reeves is a professor of English Language and Literature at Smith College and has written extensively on Sudan.

JUBA, Sudan – Sudan’s census, vital ahead of the first democratic elections in 23 years, has not received the funding it needs, a senior southern Sudanese official said.

James Wani Igga, speaker of south Sudan’s parliament, also urged the international community not to “go to sleep” and neglect the landmark 2005 peace deal that ended a long-running conflict between the north and the south of the country.

He told Reuters late on Tuesday that while an agreement was reached in December to resolve a political deadlock between the former northern and southern foes, little has been implemented on the ground.

“It is very difficult really to promise you that it (the census) is going to be on track,” Igga said. Already delayed twice, it is now slated to begin on April 15.

“A small amount has been paid but that is not all the money that is needed,” he said. This could delay the census because it had not been possible to buy vehicles or hire and train staff.

May to September is rainy season in south Sudan and many areas are out of reach by road, making a census impossible. Elections are due next year under the north-south accord known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

But Igga said the northern National Congress Party (NCP) had agreed to reinsert questions in the census on ethnicity and religion, issues that fuelled Africa’s longest civil war.

Claiming 2 million lives, the conflict pitted Khartoum’s Islamist government against mainly Christian and animist southern rebels. The southerners rejected Khartoum’s policy of Arabisation and Islamisation during the conflict, which was complicated by disputes over oil resources.

‘NOTHING VISIBLE’

The SPLM froze its participation in the national coalition government in October in protest at the NCP’s reluctance to implement the peace deal. The two sides later agreed to fund the census, withdraw northern troops from the south and demarcate the border before the south rejoined the government.

“But so far nothing visibly has been resolved on the ground except for the issue of the Sudan Armed Forces redeployment … although it has not been 100 percent so far,” Igga said.

He said the most important priority for the international community, distracted from the CPA by a separate conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region, was to refocus on the CPA through the Assessment and Evaluation Commission (AEC), of which he hoped Britain would take over the chair.

The AEC was set up to monitor the CPA and bring donors, the SPLM and the NCP together regularly to discuss progress.

“They (should not) relax that they already succeeded as the international community to bring peace and go to sleep,” Igga said after meeting Britain’s minister for Africa, Mark Malloch Brown. “The implementation is most important.”

Malloch Brown said the AEC could help improve transparency in the south, where allegations of corruption are rife and the SPLM accuses the NCP of not giving them their fair share of half the revenues from oil output of at least 500,000 barrels a day.

“People here … clearly are deeply suspicious as to whether they are getting the resources they deserve,” he told Reuters.

The minister said the AEC could also be a forum for the former foes to talk frankly and not “politically grandstand”.

He said action was needed now to support the CPA ahead of the elections in order to avert a return to war, which would be a disaster for the region.

Britain has promised over $100 million to develop Sudan in 2008, almost a quarter of the total bilateral pledges.

Sudan is an incredibly complex country. Wars and coups have marked its history since it gained independence in 1956. The country is littered with killing fields, some localized and some with national and regional implications.

Perhaps no area is more volatile and carries more implications for Sudan’s future than the oil rich region of Abyei——Sudan’s “Kashmir”—astride the boundary between North and South roughly 500 miles southwest of Khartoum. There lies one of the most potent of tripwires in all of Sudan. If the political crisis regarding Abyei is addressed, there is potential for peace in the entire country. If it is mishandled, it dramatically increases the possibility that Sudan’s current conflicts—from Darfur to the South to the East—will explode over the coming few years into a national war with regional implications and historically devastating repercussions for its people.

In our last strategy paper,[1] we outlined the reasons why Darfur and Southern Sudan were linked and argued that a prerequisite for peace in Darfur is the faithful implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, which in January 2005 ended the 20-year-long most recent phase of war between North and South. We discussed the reasons why the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM, had suspended its participation in the Government of National Unity, or GNU, created by the CPA. On December 21, 2007, after two and a half months of tough negotiations, the SPLM announced that it would return to the GNU, suggesting an agreement had been reached on all the issues except for those CPA provisions related to Abyei.

The ruling National Congress Party’s, or NCP, non-implementation of its commitments on Abyei and other elements of the CPA is part of a pattern of obstruction that is at the core of its governing strategy and is linked closely to its obstruction of the UN-AU Darfur force, called by its French acronym, MONUC, and other Darfur agreements. However, in the past, when there have been meaningful consequences for such actions, the NCP has changed course.[2] But if there continue to be no costs for the NCP’s efforts to undermine peace and security in Darfur and the South, then the cycles of violence will continue. The only chance for peace in Sudan will come if the United States, France, and Britain, backed by strong support from the region, work together to overcome China’s and Russia’s objections at the UN Security Council and impose a real cost for this pattern of obstruction.

President Bush must take a leadership role in imposing that cost—in the form of UN Security Council sanctions, U.S.-EU cooperative pressure and provision of comprehensive information to the International Criminal Court—in support of CPA implementation, UNAMID deployment, and peacemaking in Darfur. Furthermore, President Bush and the UN Security Council need to publicly and privately state that the Abyei Boundary Commission determination is the “final and binding” demarcation of the border for Abyei, and that the NCP is obligated to accept this. The silence from Washington on this issue is deafening.

It is a legacy issue for the Bush administration, given its level of engagement on Sudan over the last seven years. On Abyei specifically, it is an issue of honor and duty, given that the United States directly negotiated the Abyei Protocol which helped nail the CPA deal.

A Short History of Abyei

Abyei repeatedly surfaces as a key factor in Sudan’s North-South struggle. Why is Abyei so key to peace in Sudan and what does its experience since independence demonstrate about the value of an agreement with Khartoum for the people of peripheral regions of Sudan such as Darfur, the South, the Nuba Mountains, and the East?

Abyei is very near the border of what is now South Darfur. Historically, Abyei was unique, having developed a reputation as a bridge between North and South Sudan, especially during the later British colonial period. This is because it was an enclave of perhaps 280,000 non-Arab Southerners who had adopted some Arabic cultural practices. The group was living within Kordofan, a northern state thoroughly dominated by Sudanese Arabs. That linkage dynamic persisted for decades despite periodic egregious pogroms by Baggara Arab militia and local government security forces, but began to change dramatically after independence. This is because, from that point until today, Khartoum, though the national capital, has functioned as a partisan Sudanese Arab capital, with most other Sudanese non-Arab populations politically marginalized and effectively powerless. As Southern nationalism grew, particularly as a result of the first phase of the North-South civil war (1956-73), the identity of the Ngok Dinka of Abyei as Southerners surged. The participation of many Dinka from Abyei in that first Southern war positioned many of them to assume leadership positions in the second Southern war, which began in 1983 led by Dr. John Garang.

The first North-South war ended in 1972 with the Addis Ababa Agreement in which the South won regional autonomy, which was later abrogated, and Abyei won a referendum promising its population the free choice either to remain in Kordofan or to be integrated into South Sudan. But that referendum was never held. Khartoum’s pattern of signing agreements with adversaries and then failing to implement them is well established in the South—going back at least three governments—and now more recently in Darfur. Until there is a wider sharing of power and more democratic and transparent decision making in Sudan, it is likely no agreement providing for meaningful change will be honored.

The “second” North-South war, which lasted 20 years, resulted in more than 2 million civilian deaths, the displacement of more than 4 million others, and virtually the total destruction of the South, the Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile and Abyei. In fact Abyei became essentially uninhabited; it ceased to exist except in the hearts and minds of the surviving Ngok Dinka, scattered to the four winds, and, of course, oil entrepreneurs.
Today, Abyei remains tense. According to the International Crisis Group, Abyei’s oil fields grossed roughly $670 million for Sudan in 2006, approximately 13 per cent of the country’s total income from oil exports that year.[3] While oil in the area is reportedly being extracted hurriedly and depleted rapidly through aggressive exploitation and oil revenues from Abyei beyond 2007 are estimated to drop significantly, revenue from Abyei’s existing fields remains a critical priority for the NCP.

The CPA’S Abyei Protocol and the U.S. Role

As President George W. Bush’s administration took up the reins of government in Washington D.C. in January 2001, it was clear early on that the United States was considering an initiative to end the war in Sudan. After initial actions to test the openness of the government and rebels to a U.S. initiative, the president on September 5, 2001, appointed former Senator Jack Danforth (R-MO) as his Sudan peace envoy. Danforth led a well-staffed U.S. team which—in collaboration with strong leadership from Kenya and the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, the United Kingdom, Norway, and others—supported, cajoled, and pressured the Sudan government and the SPLM (hereinafter “the Parties”) through an incredibly complex negotiation which ultimately produced the CPA. The Parties themselves negotiated acceptable, detailed language on a wide range of issues.

There was one exception: Abyei.

The heated disagreement between the Parties over Abyei became the potential undoing of the entire CPA negotiation process. Determined not to let the talks unravel, the United States decided that it would draft the text of an Abyei agreement and pressure the two sides to sign. The U.S.-drafted text was presented to the Parties at a hotel in Naivasha, Kenya in March 2004. The SPLM accepted the text on the day it was presented; the reluctant GOS did so subsequently.

In brief, the Abyei Protocol provides for:

• A special administrative status for Abyei
• A mechanism for local governance until 2011
• A process for determining Abyei’s boundaries
• A share of oil revenues to meet the needs of Abyei survivors and returnees
• A security arrangement
• A referendum in 2011, simultaneous with the South’s referendum, to determine if Abyei will thereafter be part of the North or the South.

The Abyei Boundaries Commission (ABC) consisted of five representatives of each of the two Parties and five international experts. It was agreed that, if the Commissioners selected by the two sides could not reach an agreement, the findings of the ABC would be determined by the international experts and would be final and binding. These individuals were nominated by the United States, the United Kingdom, and IGAD at the request of both Parties.[4] The ABC acted expeditiously and presented its findings to the GNU presidency on July 14, 2005. Despite all the preceding agreements, the ABC’s determination was summarily rejected by President Bashir. Two and a half years later, he still rejects it. His November 17, 2007 comment, made while mobilizing the Popular Defense Forces[5] for possible action against the SPLA,[6] was that the ABC commissioners “should dilute their report and drink it.”

Despite its critical role in brokering the deal, the U.S. government has been largely missing in action in terms of facilitating and pushing for faithful implementation of the Abyei Protocol during this entire two and a half year period.

The Dangerous Repercussions of Non-Implementation

The Abyei population that was displaced by the war has begun to return, despite the uncertainties created by President Bashir’s rejection of the Commission’s findings and the lack of U.S. and international interest. Its current population is around 75,000, a quarter of its former population, and is slowly growing. Despite their best efforts and those of the United Nations and the NGOs that are assisting them, life in Abyei is very basic and peace very fragile.

The NCP’S approach is a key factor in the tensions between the SPLM and the NCP and how the Parties function in the GNU. Its rejection of the ABC report has rendered inoperative the entire Abyei Protocol and established the precedent that one party to the CPA can abrogate CPA provisions without public criticism or penalty from the United States or the broader international community. It is widely understood that this precedent, if not redressed, may hold serious implications for nationwide elections scheduled for 2009. Furthermore, by rejecting the Abyei Protocol, the NCP has essentially nullified the Abyei referendum scheduled for 2011, raising the threat of violence.

If the NCP ultimately decides to abort the CPA, the Abyei issue is the most likely justification it will use. Its strategy appears to be to blame the Americans for the Abyei Protocol, blame the British and Americans for the ABC, and bait the SPLA into firing first by doing nothing on Abyei until the fighting starts. Others suggest that Bashir’s actions will force the SPLM to declare independence unilaterally and prematurely, with unknowable consequences.

The NCP’s approach has perpetuated and aggravated tensions between the military forces present in Abyei. As a consequence of the non-implementation of the Abyei Protocol, the situation on the ground remains unstable. Several confrontations between the SPLA and Sudan Armed Forces have occurred. In such an event in the prevailing atmosphere, it may not be intentional hostilities that are the threat but rather accidental ones.

The good news is that the recent agreement ending the SPLM’s suspension of its participation in the Government of National Unity included a number of helpful commitments, including the integration of some forces from both sides into a Joint Integrated Unit, or JIU, that will be the principal security force in the area, as well as an agreement to pull back the Parties’ own forces out of Abyei .

The NCP’s actions have destabilized relations with the Ngok Dinka’s northern Arab neighbors, the Misseriya. The Misseriya have important vested interests in the implementation of the Abyei Protocol, as it guarantees them critical grazing access for their animals to Ngok Dinka lands in Abyei, even if Abyei, pursuant to the CPA-mandated referenda, becomes part of an independent South Sudan in 2011. Although significant numbers of Misseriya have become dissatisfied with various NCP policies and many have recently joined the SPLM and even the SPLA, significant violence between Misseriya and the SPLM occurred in the last week of December. Bashir’s approach has slowed the return of Abyei’s displaced and refugee population. It takes a hardy soul to move from a relatively secure situation, say in Juba or in a U.N. refugee camp in Kenya, into Abyei‘s current instability. And, too, the quality of life remains extremely difficult. Economic life and public services are minimal. Because of Bashir’s abrogation of the Abyei Protocol, the local government provided for in the Protocol has never been set up. And the 2 percent of oil revenues generated from product extracted from the Abyei area remain unavailable to actually be used to improve public services in Abyei, further heightening tensions. Although Khartoum’s oil procedures are thoroughly opaque, if reports that the NCP is in a rush to essentially drain those oil deposits geographically subject to the Abyei Protocol are accurate, this could negatively shape Abyei’s economic situation well into the future.
Furthermore, the Darfur rebel groups severely question why they should enter into peace negotiations with the NCP, whose track record of abiding by negotiated agreements, whether on Darfur itself or the South, has been thoroughly negative. Although they have many examples from their own experiences in Darfur, Bashir has made Abyei the proof of their fears. One way the United States and international community could encourage the Darfur rebels to negotiate seriously is if these external actors with leverage took seriously the violations of the Abyei Protocol.

The non-resolution of Abyei and the lack of interest demonstrated by the key international partners—especially the United States—means that the threat of Abyei unraveling remains a dagger pointed at the hopes of peace in Sudan.

Urgent U.S. Policy Imperatives for Abyei

1. Defining a U.S. legacy: President Bush should view proper implementation of the CPA as a legacy issue, and Abyei is the provision of the CPA that has the strongest U.S. connection. The United States and the broader international community must focus on the reality that acquiescence to one of the Parties’ abrogation of a key CPA provision endangers the entire CPA and thus ensures no peace in Darfur.

2. Building a diplomatic team: The United States, with the appointment of a new Presidential Envoy for Sudan, Ambassador Richard Williamson, has a fresh opportunity to energetically pursue full implementation of the CPA, including the Abyei Protocol. Failure to do so will cripple his tenure from the start. But Ambassador Williamson cannot do the job alone. He needs two full-time deputies, one focusing on the CPA and the other on Darfur. These deputies must be supported with a small team of diplomats based in the field—consistent with the doctrine of transformational diplomacy articulated by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

3. Imposing a cost: The United States should work within the U.N. Security Council to press for targeted sanctions against any Sudanese officials who obstruct implementation of the CPA—beginning with the Abyei Protocol—or the deployment of the U.N.-AU hybrid force in Darfur. Concurrently, the United States must also work with the European Union to coordinate pressures and to provide relevant information to the International Criminal Court as it builds further cases against those most responsible for destroying Darfur. Success will require sustained multilateral diplomacy with the full array of sticks and carrots backed by as many international actors as possible.

4. Creating a field presence: The United States, through the use of a mix of its capabilities, needs to have a regular and visible presence in Abyei, for both political and programmatic reasons. Ambassador Williamson should make a very early visit to Abyei. The U.S. Charge and other U.S. embassy and consulate officials should visit regularly to monitor developments and report in detail back to Washington to help create a comprehensive and timely understanding in Washington of Abyei’s complexities.

5. Engaging the Misseriya: The Misseriya Arab population of the area is locked into an economic and cultural embrace with the Ngok Dinka of Abyei, which the Abyei Protocol provides for and recognizes. In the interests of peace in Sudan, the United States and other donors should engage the Misseriya specifically to address their legitimate needs for development of adequate water and pasture resources.

6. Preparing for nationwide elections: The United States and other international partners should specifically focus on requirements for free and fair elections in Abyei in 2009 and in the referendum scheduled for 2011.[7] A specific plan that takes into consideration the impact of President Bashir’s refusal to fulfill his responsibilities is needed. This involves the aforementioned sticks and carrots, and U.S. will to lead in pressing for their effective implementation.

The Stakes of Inaction

The issue of Abyei is currently Sudan’s weakest link in the Parties’ implementation of the historic Comprehensive Peace Agreement. No change on Abyei means failure. Failure to adequately address Abyei is a virtual guarantee of horrific violence in that embattled region and may presage a full-scale war throughout the country.

There remains time to remedy the situation, however. U.S. leadership is key. The United States helped lead the negotiations that produced the CPA, and in particular the Abyei portion of the agreement. The United States must now lead multilateral diplomatic efforts to break the impasse over Abyei which threatens the CPA, as well as a potential peace in Darfur.

It is a legacy issue for President Bush, and a life or death issue for the people of Sudan.

[1] See Roger Winter and John Prendergast, “An All-Sudan Solution: Linking Darfur and the South,” ENOUGH Strategy Paper #9, November 2007. Available at www.enoughproject.org/files/reports/allsudan_20071114.pdf.

[2] See ENOUGH’s first report on Sudan, “The Answer to Darfur: How to Resolve the World’s Hottest War,” March 2007, at the ENOUGH website.

[3] “Sudan: Breaking the Abyei Deadlock,” International Crisis Group Africa Briefing No.47, October 12, 2007.

[4] The process and procedure used by the Commission is explained in detail in an excellent article entitled “The Abyei Protocol Demystified” by Douglas H. Johnson, one of the ABC’s international experts, which can be accessed at http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article25125.

[5] Many Janjaweed have been integrated into the PDF as part of Khartoum’s strategy to “hide” its proxy militias within more formal security structures.

[6] The SPLA, or Sudan People’s Liberation Army, is the military wing of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement.

[7] See Roger Winter and John Prendergast, “Democracy: A Key to Peace in Sudan,” ENOUGH Strategy Briefing #10, November 2007. Available at http://www.enoughproject.org/node/577.

The new United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur is not off to an encouraging start. The five-year-long genocide has already killed some 200,000 people and driven two and a half million more from their homes. What is urgently needed to save those who remain are more peacekeepers, better equipment and a lot less obstruction from Sudan.

The joint force took over this month from an earlier African Union force of 7,000 that was too small and too poorly equipped. The new one was supposed to be the largest international peacekeeping force ever authorized, with nearly 20,000 more soldiers and police officers, modern helicopters and other advanced equipment.

By the start of this year, barely a tenth of those additional forces were in place, and much of the needed new equipment had not arrived. When the peacekeepers were quickly attacked by Sudanese forces, they had to withdraw without returning fire.

While claiming that it will cooperate, Khartoum has repeatedly tried to hobble the force: refusing to accept some non-African peacekeepers, trying to limit the peacekeepers’ use of helicopters and demanding other untenable restrictions. Last week, Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, chose a notorious leader of the janjaweed, the militias that have carried out most of the killing, to be a senior government adviser.

Nobody pretends that bringing a stable peace to Darfur will be easy. The conflict involves not just the janjaweed and the Sudanese Army but also rival Darfur rebels and militias. Underlying it all is a desperate competition between nomads and farmers for land and water in a parched region. There is no hope at all until a credible and credibly armed peacekeeping force is deployed.

The world’s leaders say they care desperately about Darfur’s suffering. But caring is not enough. What is needed is troops, equipment and a lot more diplomatic pressure on Sudan. The word of the United Nations is on the line, and so are the lives of Darfur’s people.

The Beijing Olympics this summer were supposed to be China’s coming-out party, celebrating the end of nearly two centuries of weakness, poverty and humiliation.

Instead, China’s leaders are tarnishing their own Olympiad by abetting genocide in Darfur and in effect undermining the U.N. military deployment there. The result is a growing international campaign to brand these “The Genocide Olympics.”

This is not a boycott of the Olympics. But expect Darfur-related protests at Chinese Embassies, as well as banners and armbands among both athletes and spectators. There’s a growing recognition that perhaps the best way of averting hundreds of thousands more deaths in Sudan is to use the leverage of the Olympics to shame China into more responsible behavior.

The central problem is that in exchange for access to Sudanese oil, Beijing is financing, diplomatically protecting and supplying the arms for the first genocide of the 21st century. China is the largest arms supplier to Sudan, officially selling $83 million in weapons, aircraft and spare parts to Sudan in 2005, according to Amnesty International USA. That is the latest year for which figures are available.

China provided Sudan with A-5 Fantan bomber aircraft, helicopter gunships, K-8 military training/attack aircraft and light weapons used in Sudan’s proxy invasion of Chad last year. China also uses the threat of its veto on the Security Council to block U.N. action against Sudan so that there is a growing risk of a catastrophic humiliation for the U.N. itself.

Sudan feels confident enough with Chinese backing that on Jan. 7, the Sudanese military ambushed a clearly marked U.N. convoy of peacekeepers in Darfur. Sudan claimed the attack was a mistake, but diplomats and U.N. professionals are confident that this was a deliberate attack ordered by the Sudanese leaders to put the U.N. in its place.

Sudan has already barred units from Sweden, Norway, Nepal, Thailand and other countries from joining the U.N. force. It has banned night flights, dithered on a status-of-forces agreement, held up communications equipment and refused to allow the U.N. to bring in foreign helicopters. The growing fear is that the U.N. force will be humiliated in Sudan as it was in Rwanda and Bosnia, causing enormous damage to international peacekeeping.

Another possible sign of Sudan’s confidence: an American diplomat, John Granville, was ambushed and murdered in Khartoum early this month. Many in the diplomatic and intelligence community believe that such an assassination could not happen in Khartoum unless elements of the government were involved.

Chinese officials argue that they are engaging in quiet diplomacy with Sudan’s leaders and that this is the best way to seek a solution in Darfur. They note that Sudan has other backers, and that China’s influence is limited.

It is true that since the start of the “Genocide Olympics” campaign (www.dreamfordarfur.org) a year ago, China has been more helpful, and it’s only because of Chinese pressure on Khartoum that U.N. peacekeepers were admitted to Darfur at all. But the basic reality is that China continues to side with Sudan — it backed Sudan again after it ambushed the U.N. peacekeepers — and Sudan feels protected enough that it goes on thumbing its nose at the international community.

Just a few days ago, Sudan appointed Musa Hilal, a founding leader of the Arab militia known as the janjaweed, to a position in the central government. This is the man who was once quoted as having expressed gratitude for “the necessary weapons and ammunition to exterminate the African tribes in Darfur.”

Other countries also must do much more, but China is crucial. If Beijing were to suspend all transfers of arms and spare parts to Sudan until a peace deal is reached in Darfur, then that would change the dynamic. President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan would be terrified — especially since he is now preparing to resume war with South Sudan — and would realize that China is no longer willing to let its Olympics be stained by Darfuri blood.

Without his Chinese shield, Mr. Bashir would be more likely to make concessions to Darfur rebels and negotiate seriously with them, and he would no longer have political cover to resume war against South Sudan. That would make long-term peace more likely in Darfur and also in South Sudan.

I’m a great fan of China’s achievements, and I’ve often defended Beijing from unfair protectionist rhetoric spouted by American politicians. But those of us who admire China’s accomplishments find it difficult to give credit when Beijing simultaneously underwrites the ultimate crime of genocide.

China deserves an international celebration to mark its historic re-emergence as a major power. But so long as China insists on providing arms to sustain a slaughter based on tribe and skin color, this will remain, sadly, The Genocide Olympics.

You can comment on this column at Mr. Kristof’s blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground.

It’s a bleak day for humanity when one of the architects of the genocide in Darfur gets a promotion. In a gesture of supreme defiance of decency and international law, the Sudanese government announced Monday that it had appointed Musa Hilal, a militia leader who recruited and mobilized the janjaweed militias responsible for the carnage in Darfur, to be a special advisor to the president on ethnic affairs.

It gets worse. Hilal is the third alleged war criminal to be elevated to a government post. He is under United Nations and U.S. State Department sanctions; the other two have been indicted by the International Criminal Court. In an especially cynical move, one of the indicted has been put in charge of humanitarian aid to Darfur. Sudan also has been doing everything possible to obstruct the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers, including shooting at a clearly marked U.N. convoy this month.

Appeasement and negotiation from a position of weakness have not and will not stop the thuggery of the oil-rich Sudanese regime. Only muscle will do. But the “civilized” world has done next to nothing to enforce meaningful economic sanctions, hasn’t even moved to arrest the indicted war criminals and, disgracefully, has yet to provide even one of the helicopters that U.N. peacekeepers need. It’s time to face facts: Unless the U.N. gets far more political, economic and military support from its posturing but so-far feckless members, it may as well pack up its blue helmets and go home.

Monday’s announcement appears calculated to send yet another message of contempt for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is scheduled to fly to Sudan at the end of the month to meet with President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir. Ban should cancel that trip and instead fly to Beijing, which persuaded Sudan to accept the peacekeepers in the first place, and ask again for Chinese help in pressuring Bashir. While there, he should announce that the mission cannot go forward until the United Nations receives the helicopters. Ban has been too diplomatic to note publicly that the U.S. military has plenty of spare choppers but does not want to send its pilots to a Muslim nation. Instead, Washington has shamefully suggested that the U.N. accept an offer of outdated Jordanian helicopters that cannot be flown at night — which is precisely when the Sudanese fly their nefarious missions. But the U.S. could easily lend or lease its helicopters to the U.N., which could then recruit pilots from other nations.

Either the world is willing to help the Darfurians, or it isn’t. If the latter, it’s even more cruel to promise help that will never arrive.

Report Overview

“I call upon all to think of the people in the camps, those in exile… the lives they live, lives without a future, the suffering they have endured, the hunger, the youth without hope, the thousands who have died… Should we wait before providing them with answers? Do you think that the people in the camps can wait much longer? Do you think that the people in the camps can continue living in such conditions?”

Professor Alpha Oumar Konare, Chair of the AU Peace & Security Council, October 2007

More than 90,000 people are believed to have been killed as a result of the conflict in Darfur since 2003. About 200,000 are thought to have died from conflict-related causes and over 2.3 million are internally displaced. Faced with a rebellion in 2003, the Sudanese government exploited existing tensions to arm local militias and used them, with government air and ground support, to forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of people.

Most of those driven from their homes and communities are now living in more than 65 camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) dotted around Darfur.

Others are not living in camps but sheltering in towns in Darfur, squatting in shacks or living with relatives or others who have offered them a corner of their house. In addition, hundreds of others, mostly newly displaced, are sheltering in the bush, where they survive precariously on wild fruits and cereals or with help from local people whose villages have been spared.

Thousands more Darfuris escaped to towns elsewhere in Sudan, mostly in neighbouring Kordofan State. Some reached eastern Sudan, where many people from Darfur have lived for years working on economic projects, and some fled to Khartoum. About 240,000 people from Darfur are known to be living in 12 refugee camps in eastern Chad.

Vast areas of Darfur lie desolate and almost empty except for some nomads, although there are still a few areas where a fragile balance is preserved and villages remain. In some parts of Darfur, wild millet and sorghum growing among tall grass and trees are the only signs left of old villages. In other areas, former villages are marked by burnt mud-brick walls and deserted houses.

Many families have been forcibly displaced several times, and newly displaced people continue to arrive at IDP camps. According to UN figures, another 30,000 people were displaced in October 2007 as a result of attacks on Muhageria in South Darfur, and Bir Dagig and Umm Dukhum in West Darfur. This brought the number of people displaced between January 2007 and the end of November to approximately 280,000.

Since 2004 a massive humanitarian operation has provided food and water, primary education and health care to more than four million displaced people and people who, though not displaced, have been drawn into poverty by conflict and attacks. But, as one former displaced person from Mershing camp put it, “The NGOs give us food and water, they cannot give us security”.

To download a PDF of the full report, click here.

On 23 November 2007 the Horn of Africa Group held a seminar at Chatham House on Sudan and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). At a time when the CPA implementation was clearly faltering, the seminar brought together a mix of officials and opinion leaders from Sudan, together with academic specialists and foreign policy-makers. The aims of the seminar were threefold: to assess the obstacles to implementation and what should be done to overcome them; to anticipate risks of a return to conflict and any mitigating steps that could be taken to avoid them; and to identify areas of CPA implementation where energy and attention need to be focused, whether by the local actors or by international supporters of the process.

The seminar was held under the Chatham House Rule. The participants represented a wide range of political opinion from both North and South Sudan. The following summary record seeks to reflect the full range of these often quite divergent views and to capture some of the key themes that emerged during the discussion.

Background

The CPA was signed in January 2005, ending 25 years of war between North and South Sudan. It was designed to achieve a fairer deal for Southerners in the economic and political life of the country, as well as enhancing democratic governance in the rest of Sudan. The CPA created an autonomous Government of Southern Sudan and established a six-year implementation timetable, with benchmarks that include elections in 2009 and a referendum on independence for the South in 2011, as well as the establishment of a Government of National Unity in which the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) took part alongside the National Congress Party (NCP) and other political forces.

In early October 2007, the SPLM provoked a political crisis by suspending its cooperation in the Government of National Unity, in protest at delays in implementation of the agreement. The seminar on Sudan was held in late November at a time of considerable political uncertainly. Negotiations over terms for the renewal of SPLM cooperation in the national unity government were still taking place. Both President Omar al Bashir and Vice President Salva Kiir (SPLM) had reaffirmed their commitment to the CPA. But Bashir had restated his rejection of the delimitation decision of the Abyei Boundary Commission and called for mobilization of the People’s Defence Forces to be ‘ready for any eventuality’. The SPLM had threatened to withdraw from the Government of National Unity if implementation was not back on track by 9 January 2008, the third anniversary of the agreement. Political negotiations between the two sides were continuing, with both sides working to a timetable of the end of December to resolve blockages to implementation.

To read a PDF of the full report, click here.

(The Horn of Africa Group is a collaboration between four London-based institutions: Chatham House, the Royal African Society, the Rift Valley Institute and the Centre for African Studies at London University.)

This month might be dominated by presidential politics, but January is also a great time to plot advocacy strategies for Capitol Hill. During the coming year, the distraction of headline politics provides a great opening to pilot new policy ideas inside Congress — and get heard. National security is unfortunately an issue that gets warped and slung about in a most unhelpful way on the campaign trail. Which is why Americans who work on issues like Darfur and genocide prevention have a double opportunity to present their issue campaigns within a larger security strategy that changes our direction in the world. People who work on these issues inside Congress will welcome a ground truth check from public minded citizens.

The last month has brought both progress and setbacks for the fledgling peacekeeping mission in the Sudan. The fact that the UN troops have now joined African Union troops is a great step forward. Yet attacks against the peacekeepers continue — the most recent one last Friday was against a supply convoy. Everyone who cares about this issue deserves to feel frustrated. After all, the U.S. and its allies pressured the U.N. to deploy a new peacekeeping force for Darfur but are now failing to support it. None of the hardware-heavy wealthy countries, it seems, has the wherewithal to come up with a few helicopters. This failing points out an important new direction for anti-genocide movement here in the USA — one that will make all the difference in the world for promoting the primary security principle of this century: the safety of people. But doing this will require a few new strategies and tactics.

The genocide prevention movement is one of the most encouraging grass roots campaigns that I have seen in 20 years of working on peace and security issues in politics. When I worked on Capitol Hill, I often griped about activists confusing strategy for tactics or vice versa (i.e. send a 600 page dissertation to Congress and expect the staff to extract security policy from it OR chain themselves to a nuclear power plant and expect Congress to understand clean energy) The anti-genocide activists have, in many ways cracked this organizing nut, bringing knowledge and action together with great timing. Informed by sophisticated organizations and enormous networks, they stay on top of the candidates, on top of Congress and make knowledgeable recommendations.

Rallying Hollywood to the cause, the advocates take their stand smack in the middle of American culture, too. Sand and Sorrow played repeatedly on HBO, and Darfur Now was promoted extensively online before being released in theaters.

The strategic landscape of security has undeniably changed. Everyone, from our Republican Secretary of Defense to rock star Bono recognizes that, in today’s world, hardware-heavy military dominance has a limited ability to make threats go away. Indeed, force and coercion are making way for persuasion and prevention, even in military doctrine. This doesn’t mean that the use of force isn’t important (a la helicopters for peacekeeping) but what it does mean is that all ears are open to hearing comprehensive alternative strategies, and especially ideas that emphasize a different set of tools for security. See this great list for examples, and this Global Women Leaders Call to Action for a good framework.

Here’s my call to Darfur advocates: Time is of the essence and no other issue has your organizing capacity nor your ability to influence elected leaders in the districts where they live on the issue of a new American security strategy . You now need to move beyond moral imperatives, documentation, and UN support and dive into military reform discussions. Witness this info on a recent press release from the House Armed Services Committee:

“In today’s rapidly evolving security environment, the Department of Defense must be able to reform and modernize to meet 21st century threats. The defense authorization conference agreement, which requires a roles and missions review every four years, will be an invaluable tool to ensure that our forces are properly prepared and ready to respond to future national security challenges.”

Now, why are Tennessee, New York, Washington, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Georgia and Texas so important for this? Because that’s where the members of this congressional Roles and Missions Panel are from.

This means that a significant and comprehensive review process (one that hasn’t really happened since the 1940’s) has been initiated (the panel was named in July). Because the Defense Department has the lion’s share of financial resources, personnel and responsibilities for security, the fact that the Armed Services Committee is proceeding with this reform assessment is a big, big deal. Having a chorus of citizen voices out around the country advocating for sophisticated and realistic new roles and missions for our military will be vital to see any real change. Peacekeeping is one of those missions (the military calls this group of activities Stability and Support Operations or SASO). The Army has written about this topic as have many DC groups.

Like many old stodgy traditions, the security establishment in the USA will not change easily, nor will much of it go away without a knock-down drag-out fight. Moving beyond hardware primacy as the defining centerpiece of U.S. security strategy is not just a huge and lucrative investment for thousands of commercial interests, it has tenacious ideological backers as well. Congress has champions of change and reform, but they need support and help getting their inert colleagues to pay attention. This isn’t an all or nothing fight. Some of the hardware is imperative (again, the helicopters). Not all the dollars should be diverted to global public education, or Farsi-speaking officers for that matter. But we have to start the discussion with everything on the table and match ends to means.

UNITED NATIONS — A U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force faced the first major challenge to its authority in Darfur, Sudan, this week, enduring more than 10 minutes of hostile fire from Sudanese forces without responding with a single shot.

The assault Tuesday evening against a clearly marked supply convoy of more than 20 trucks and armored personnel vehicles left a Sudanese driver critically wounded and prompted a formal protest from U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. It also gave the U.N.-backed force a humiliating defeat during the critical first weeks of its mission in Darfur.

The United Nations’ chief peacekeeping official, Jean-Marie Guehenno, vowed to “repel” future attacks against U.N. and African Union personnel. But other U.N. officials said the force’s Nigerian commander, Gen. Martin Luther Agwai, lacks the firepower to respond forcefully to a larger and better-equipped Sudanese military.

The incident marked a setback to U.S.-backed efforts to end nearly five years of violence in Darfur through the deployment of more than 26,000 peacekeepers, mostly Africans. The mission replaced 7,000 African Union peacekeepers who had largely retreated to their barracks amid armed attacks.

So far the new force has about 9,000 peacekeepers, most of whom are African Union troops who simply replaced their green berets with blue U.N. berets.

The United States, the United Nations and other key powers had reason to believe an attack such as Tuesday’s was coming. In September, an armed group assaulted an African Union base, killing 10 soldiers near the town of Haskanita. Since then, U.N. leaders have warned of the risk of failure from entering the Darfur conflict without adequate resources to repel an attack. But requests for vital equipment — including 24 transport and attack helicopters — have gone unanswered.

“If in this particular situation we had helicopters capable of flying at night and quickly reinforcing a convoy under attack, of course we would have been in a completely different situation,” Guehenno said. “We would have been in a position to deter.”

Sudan, meanwhile, has imposed technical hurdles for the mission, including the recent rejection of a unit of Nordic engineers, according to U.N. officials. The Sudanese authorities continue to haggle over the force’s right to wear the U.N. blue helmets, recruit non-African troops and travel in Darfur without government approval.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has accused the Sudanese government of “dragging its feet” in an attempt to ensure that the U.N.-backed force remains incapable of protecting civilians in Darfur.

But Khalilzad also conceded that inadequately equipping the force has placed the credibility of the United Nations and its political patrons, including the United States, at stake. “We need to take stock of this and consider steps that incentivize the government of Sudan to cooperate,” he said.

Former Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi conducted a major review of U.N. peacekeeping in 2000, in which he concluded that peacekeepers should not enter war zones without consent from key belligerents or without a political settlement that the United Nations could implement. Where the United Nations does serve, he added, it must equip its troops to respond to armed “spoilers.”

Those lessons have yielded some success in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Congo and Haiti, where the United Nations recovered from setbacks by engaging in offensive military operations to put down challenges from rebels and armed gangs.

But in Darfur, an ill-prepared peacekeeping force has entered a live battle zone involving combatants from the Sudanese army, neighboring Chad and a major Darfurian rebel group. Guehenno said: “There is a combination of factors that may lead to the greatest risk to the United Nations since the 1990s. We have a war ongoing, maybe low intensity, but a war ongoing, especially in West Darfur.”

Sudan’s U.N. ambassador, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, initially denied that Sudan played a role in the attack, saying it was carried out by the Chadian government and local Darfurian rebels. “There is a big lie here,” he said. “We have no relationship at all whatever with that attack.”

But U.N. officials said a Sudanese commander has admitted that his force fired on the U.N. convoy. Sudan’s Defense Ministry acknowledged Thursday that its troops carried out the attack, but it said the U.N.-backed force shared responsibility for the “mistake” because it had failed to alert Sudanese authorities that it was traveling in the area. The United Nations maintains that it provided adequate notice.

Despite some optimistic signs this week, the future of Sudan’s north-south peace process still looks decidedly vulnerable, according to a new report by British think tank Chatham House.

Almost all of Khartoum’s troops have pulled out of the semi-autonomous south, just in time for the third anniversary of the north-south peace deal. And though this redeployment is undoubtedly a positive sign, one look at Chatham House’s latest report on Sudan shows there could well be major difficulties ahead for peace in southern Sudan.

The Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), signed in 2005, ended a 21-year war between the Sudanese government and rebels from the north. Killing 2 million people and forcing more than 4 million from their homes, the war was among Africa’s longest-running.

Delays, a lack of popular knowledge about the process, an absence of agreement over core definitions, continuing disputes over oil-rich border areas such as Abyei and local hostilities could all spell trouble ahead for the CPA, according to Chatham House.

A comprehensive national census is the next step in the peace process outlined in the CPA. Delayed four times already, there are certainly no guarantees it will go ahead when scheduled in April 2008.

Further delays make fair elections more difficult to organise and threaten to create further distrust between the major players – the National Congress Party from the north and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement from the south.

Actors in the south Sudan peace process must also heed lessons from Sudan’s western Darfur region, say the authors. Similar tensions over access to local resources, especially land, could be replicated between pastoralists, farmers, sharecroppers and returning displaced people on the north-south Sudan border.

Rather than failing at the level of the political parties negotiating the CPA, “a more likely way for the agreement to break down (is) through an accumulation of mishandled local issues”, they conclude.

“Failure to manage these local issues could prove fatal to the implementation of the CPA. If left to fester they could generate renewed conflict that could induce one (or both) of the major players the abandon the peace process.”

A report by John Prendergast and Roger Winter titled Democracy: A Key to Peace in Sudan emphasises just how ill Sudan can afford delays in the election processes outlined in the CPA.

“Sudan has been torn apart by internal conflict for most of its independence, in part because of the lack of democratic processes or institutions,” Prendergast and Winter say in their report for the U.S.-based Enough project aimed at fighting crimes against humanity.

The crux of the continuing success of the CPA is international community involvement, they argue. International resources and personnel are urgently needed to help the parties keep to deadlines, to develop institutional foundations and negotiate local tensions.

But with so much international attention concentrated on the ongoing crisis in Darfur, you can’t help fearing there might be serious trouble ahead for the CPA.

The establishment of strong democratic institutions and processes in Sudan will be a key prerequisite for peace in Darfur and the South. By setting forth a timetable for elections, the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement seeks to give Sudanese citizens significantly more control in how their country is governed. However, the CPA election clock is ticking and neither the institutional foundations nor the requisite electoral processes are in place. These electoral processes in the context of the implementation of the CPA provide Sudan’s best hope for peace—a political transformation through democracy.

There are three major electoral milestones critical to the implementation of the CPA over the next three years: 1) the population census in April 2008; 2) the national elections by July 2009; and 3) a self-determination referendum for Southern Sudan by March 2011. [1]

Sudan has been torn apart by internal conflict for most of its independence, in part because of the lack of democratic processes or institutions. Resolving Sudan’s ongoing conflicts and preventing future violence means seizing the opportunity provided by the CPA to start building these foundations. The international community must demand full and timely implementation of the CPA—particularly these electoral provisions—and deploy additional personnel and resources now to ensure that this historic opportunity is not missed. As well, donors must provide significant support to civil society organizations in the North and South and to Southern Sudanese government institutions to strengthen the forces promoting democracy in Sudan.

There should be penalties for non-compliance with the CPA timetable. The U.N. Security Council endorsed the CPA and key Security Council members helped negotiate it. But much more could be done to ensure that the CPA’s provisions have not been violated repeatedly by the National Congress Party (NCP). The Security Council should consider targeted sanctions against those officials who are most responsible for obstructing the implementation of the CPA. If the Council will not act, the United States and the European Union should consider appropriate, coordinated responses, and encourage the African Union and Arab League to join in demanding implementation of this critical peace deal.

MILESTONE #1—THE 2008 CENSUS

A new, national census is directly linked to the 2009 elections in two key ways. First, the CPA states that representation of the North and South at the national level will be based on the population ratio. The power sharing percentages currently stipulated by the CPA shall be “confirmed or adjusted on the basis of the census results.” [2] Currently, the ruling NCP has 52 percent of the seats in the National Assembly, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) 28 percent, and other political parties 20 percent. The NCP and the SPLM negotiated these percentages during the drafting of the CPA, but without new, valid census data, it is not possible to confirm that these percentages accurately reflect Sudan’s current demography. The census results will also provide the basis for determining constituencies and for voter registration.

The ruling NCP has a keen understanding of the critical relationship between the census and the fairness of the 2009 elections, and has attempted to derail the census. The CPA mandated that the census be undertaken by July 2007 in order to allow sufficient time to collect, process, and analyze the data before the election. Because of funding delays by the NCP, however, the census date slipped from July 2007 to November 2007, then to February 2008, and has most recently been rescheduled for April 2008. If the date slips yet again, the rainy season will prevent the census team from gaining full access to Southern Sudan and tip the balance toward the North.

The NCP tried to make unilateral changes to the census questionnaire that would have thwarted the ability to count the Southerners who live in Northern Sudan. This was important because the war was waged in the South and the majority of Sudan’s displaced citizens are Southerners, and between two and four million now reside in the North. The South/SPLM had to push hard to ensure that the census questionnaire would accurately determine the number of Northerners and Southerners throughout the entire country. This will ensure that there is a way to determine the precise number of Southerners who reside in the North and the precise number of Northerners who reside in the South.

The international community can help to ensure that the census—now scheduled from April 15-30, 2008—is successful first and foremost by providing sufficient numbers of qualified international observers of the census.

MILESTONE #2—THE 2009 ELECTION

The election has the potential to reshape the distribution of political power at all levels of governance in Sudan. Elections are mandated to take place at six levels of government: the Presidency of the Government of National Unity, the Presidency of the Government of Southern Sudan, the National Assembly in Khartoum, the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly in Juba, 25 State Legislatures, and 25 State Governors.

The immediate requirement for a sound election is for the National Assembly to pass an election law that meets international standards. Without the passage of a new law, the National Electoral Commission cannot be established and extensive preparations needed for elections cannot begin. These preparations include: selection and training of election commission staff; voter registration; construction of electoral commission buildings in the South and identification of buildings in the North (one in each state capital); procurement and distribution of ballots (the number will depend on the type of electoral system), ballot boxes, voters rolls, and vehicles; training and recruitment of domestic and international election observers[3] and polling agents; and massive voter education campaigns.

Sudan’s Election Bill was scheduled to be passed by the National Assembly by December 2007, but the Assembly failed to do so. Even the best case scenario presents major challenges. If the law is passed in January 2008, the electoral commission established in February, and the election scheduled between March 2009 and July 2009, the commission will only have one year to accomplish the myriad tasks listed above.

There are two further practical issues: dates and costs. Although the CPA allows for elections to take place as late as July 9, 2009, it is critical that elections be held before the onset of the rainy season in order to ensure that all Sudanese are able to vote. Conducting a complex election in Africa’s largest country with one of the most underdeveloped infrastructure systems on the continent will pose a massive and expensive logistical challenge. Assuming that half of the estimated 38 million Sudanese will be of voting age in 2009, the United Nations estimates that the election will cost between $400 and $500 million. The 2006 elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo demonstrate that, with requisite resources and will, large underdeveloped countries can hold successful elections.

MILESTONE #3—THE 2011 SELF-DETERMINATION REFERENDUM

The premise of the CPA is that during the six years between the signing of the agreement in 2005 and the self-determination referendum in 2011, the NCP, SPLM, and the agreement’s international guarantors and supporters work to “make unity attractive,” thereby increasing the likelihood that Southerners would vote for unity. However, given that the war was fought principally in the South and Southerners were the primary victims of a conflict that killed 2 million people, the burden to make unity attractive rests overwhelmingly with the NCP in Khartoum.

The NCP could take any number of steps to make unity more attractive:

genuine power sharing in the Government of National Unity

a real resolution of the Darfur crisis

free and fair elections whose results represent the will of the people

a clear demonstration that all Sudanese citizens are equal, and that the interim period is not just about the North “granting” the South some scraps of political or economic benefits

a tangible peace dividend that demonstrates that critical resources like oil will yield equitable gains for the whole of Sudan, including the South

faithful implementation of the CPA

The clock is ticking, and the NCP must soon demonstrate a real commitment to unity. At this juncture, the chances for a vote for unity are remote. First, throughout the war, the desire for independence grew in direct proportion to the amount of force used against the South – and the war was sufficiently violent, and government forces were sufficiently unrelenting, so a significant portion of the Southern Sudanese people decided that independence was the only option. Second, John Garang – who had the credibility to champion the cause of unity in the South because he had the power to press unity upon the North – is no longer on the scene. And third, Khartoum has not only failed to make unity appear attractive, it has taken steps that signal genuine unity is impossible – by thwarting the implementation of the CPA, by its actions in Darfur, by its handling of oil resources, by its rejection of the Abyei Boundaries Commission’s findings, etc.

The National Democratic Institute has conducted a series of focus group surveys in Southern Sudan, the first conducted just before the CPA was signed and the most recent in May 2007. A report released in April 2006 concluded the following:

Nothing appears to shake Southerners from the conviction that separation is their best, and perhaps only, choice. Participants in the study were presented with several scenarios designed to make unity a more attractive option and were then asked if any of these could possibly alter their opinion about how they would vote in the 2011 self-determination referendum. For most, neither direction from the leadership, the promise of more development, nor the possibility of re-igniting the conflict is enough to deter them from the belief that – come 2011 – they will be voting for separation. [4]

KEEPING THE DEMOCRATIC TRANSFORMATION ON TRACK

Looking at other post-conflict or post-dictatorship situations, not only in Africa but also in Latin America and even in Iraq, the credibility of peace and democracy derives from two things. First, credible institutions that work; i.e., that enable people to resolve their differences and determine their political futures. And second, tangible economic dividends; i.e., real change in the standard of living, in wealth distribution, etc.

Those economic dividends will result from the degree to which the NCP shares the wealth of the country and the commitment of the Government of Southern Sudan to transparent governance. And the credibility of the census, the election, and the referendum — if carried out openly, transparently, and honestly — will demonstrate whether the NCP is committed to a truly united Sudan based on equality and respect. Thus far, the NCP has not demonstrated that commitment.

It will be up to the citizens of Southern Sudan to cast their vote in the referendum on whether unity has been made attractive. Those votes will create a new Sudan—in either one or two parts—that will be born of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Therein lies the power — and the promise — of the CPA. Whether this promise is realized depends in large part on the international community’s support for the census, the election, and the self-determination referendum.

[1] Abyei will have a separate self-determination referendum at the same time the South has its referendum. The ENOUGH Project will discuss the Abyei issue in a forthcoming report.

[2] To read the full text of the Comprenhensive Peace Agreement go to, http://www.unmis.org/English/documents/cpa-en.pdf

[3] The CPA mandates international observation of the election, and citizens both North and South are aware of this provision and embrace it.

[4] Traci Cook, “Searching for a Path to Peace,” National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, April 12, 2006. Available at http://www.accessdemocracy.org/library/2034_su_report_041206.pdf

UNITED NATIONS – U.N. peacekeeping forces lack the troops and equipment necessary to improve the situation in violence-wracked Darfur and will continue to be ineffective until mid-2008, the U.N. peacekeeping chief cautioned Wednesday.

United Nations officials are discussing with Ukraine and Russia ways of obtaining helicopters and other equipment while also considering pulling them away from other U.N. peacekeeping missions, said Jean-Marie Guehenno, the U.N. undersecretary-general for peacekeeping.

Guehenno’s warnings of “dire consequences” for Sudan, during a half-hour report to U.N. Security Council members, raised questions about whether the African Union-United Nations peacekeeeping mission that took over just this month can provide even for its own security.

In his assessment, Guehenno offered a grim outline of the council’s options and the many political and bureaucratic obstacles they face. The beleaguered A.U.-U.N. mission, as the latest international effort to quell the widespread violence in western Sudan, has 9,000 soldiers and police officers, but it is supposed to have 26,000.

“We do not yet have guaranteed agreements from the (Sudanese) government on basic technical issues,” Guehenno told the council. “The mission itself will not have the personnel or assets in place to implement its mandate for many months, even in the best-case scenario.”

Khartoum has long resisted such a force, insisting it must be predominantly African.

“There is no good reason that these issues should persist ad infinitum,” Guehenno said. “It is clear that these deployments must move more quickly if we are to have a material impact on the situation in the first half of this year.”

He said there has been “a grave deterioration of the security situation” since his last briefing to the council a month ago.

Guehenno, a former French ambassador and career diplomat, also told reporters that Darfur poses “the greatest risk for the United Nations” in a decade.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday reproached Sudan for its soldiers firing two days earlier on a U.N. convoy of more than 20 “clearly marked” vehicles protected by South African peacekeepers, who did not return fire, according to U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas.

The convoy carried Russian personnel to western Darfur; a Sudanese driver suffered seven gunshot wounds. Ban insisted Sudan now “has to provide unequivocal guarantees” it will not risk another such incident, his spokeswoman, Michele Montas, said.

Britain’s ambassador to the U.N., John Sawers, and the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Zalmay Khalilzad, each said that Sudan’s delays were “unacceptable.”

“The fact there has been persistent obstruction and foot-dragging by the Sudanese government means it is quiet clear these delays are political and not technical,” said Sawers.

Sudan’s U.N. ambassador, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, insisted, however, that his government is “cooperating on all issues.”

Sudan’s objections, however, have led Sweden and Norway to drop plans to contribute about 400 troops to the peacekeeping forces, the two countries announced Wednesday.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said in a joint statement that Sudan must bear “full responsibility” for the Scandinavian countries’ decision to drop their contribution to the peacekeeping force.

“Sudan hinders Norway and Sweden from participating in this very necessary operation,” the ministers said.

The troops, 160 from Sweden and 240 from Norway, were supposed to help build infrastructure in an early stage of the operation.

More than 200,000 people have died, and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes in the Darfur region of western Sudan since ethnic African groups took up arms in 2003 over accusations that the Arab-dominated Sudanese government discriminated against them.

Arab militias allied to the government, known as janjaweed, are accused of a campaign of atrocities against ethnic African civilians, razing villages and raping women.

___

Associated Press Writer Alfred de Montesquiou in Khartoum, Sudan and Malin Rising in Stockholm contributed to this report.

ABYEI, Sudan — This ramshackle town of mud huts and dirt roads is swarming with returning African refugees, Arab militiamen and rival troops from north and south Sudan — all eyeing each other in fear of a spark that could detonate the volatile mix.

Nearby lies a prize that all are eager to win: some of Sudan’s richest oil fields.

Claimed by north and south, Abyei has become a potential flashpoint that could wreck the fragile peace between the ethnic African south and Sudan’s Arab-dominated government in the capital Khartoum. The two sides made peace in 2005 after more than two decades of civil war.

A return to the war could plunge all of Sudan into chaos and exacerbate the separate conflict in the western Darfur region which has claimed more than 200,000 lives since 2003.

“The only hope I have is that the fighting won’t be started by our side,” Bol Dau Deng, the local coordinator of the government’s Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, told The Associated Press, referring to southerners.

Deng is a southerner but is in a precarious position between the two sides. His commission, meant to help returning ethnic African refugees who fled the civil war, represents both the southern administration and the Khartoum government. With Abyei’s status unclear, he is by default the highest-ranking — and just about only — government official in the town.

Abyei lies just north of the boundary line between north and south Sudan set by Sudan’s British colonial rulers in the early 20th century. But the line is disputed, and southerners want the area incorporated into their autonomous zone, created by the 2005 peace agreement.

Many of the south’s former rebel leaders come from Abyei and frequently vow to reclaim the area. But the government in Khartoum, unwilling to let go of lucrative oil fields nearby, has rejected a proposed new boundary recently drawn by an international commission that would abut Abyei in the south.

The dispute has already shaken the peace deal once. Last October, southern cabinet ministers walked out of the unity government over a number of disputes, including Abyei — raising fears the peace could collapse.

The ministers rejoined the government in late December, having settled most of their differences — except for Abyei.

The 2005 peace deal was a rare, landmark success in Sudan, coming as the separate, though similar conflict in Darfur was escalating. In Darfur, ethnic African rebels rose up against the Khartoum government in 2003, sparking a conflict that shows no sign of ending. A new U.N.-African peacekeeping force was launched in Darfur on Monday, but many fear it will not be strong enough to stop the violence amid resistance from Sudan’s government.

If the north-south peace should collapse and fighting between the two sides resumes, the resulting chaos would likely intensify the conflict in Darfur as well.

For now, Abyei, 500 miles southwest of Khartoum, remains tense, with both sides jockeying for position. The area holds important oil reserves. The International Crisis Group estimates that oil fields in the area brought in about $670 million for Sudan in 2006, about 13 percent of its income from oil exports that year.

Since 2005, tens of thousands of ethnic African residents driven out by the war have flooded back into Abyei and its surroundings. They are returning from refugee camps farther south with the implicit backing of the southern government, which wants the area to vote in favor of the south in national elections planned for 2009.

The influx has catapulted the area’s population from nearly zero before 2005 to about 90,000 — the vast majority of them returning ethnic Africans from the Ngok Dinka tribe.

“This is our home, we want to be here now that there is peace,” said Magig Toung Ngor, a Dinka chief in the nearby village of Dokra, built to host some of the returnees.

“It’s important for our future,” he said.

A southern victory in Abyei in the 2009 election would then allow the town to choose independence from Khartoum along with the rest of southern Sudan in a referendum planned for 2011 under the peace deal.

The northern government, in turn, is counting on a tribe of Arab nomads known as the Misseriah, who graze their cattle around Abyei, to vote in the town and side with the north. But the Misseriah have splintered, with one armed militia from the tribe growing hostile to the Khartoum government and now supporting the southerners.

Meanwhile, hundreds of heavily armed southern and northern forces sit uneasily in and around the town, raising fears that friction could spark a new clash — or that one side or another could move to resolve the dispute by force.

Under the peace accord, all troops are supposed to withdraw from the border zone to allow it to be patrolled by 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers along with joint units of northern and southern forces. The two sides only began allowing the U.N. to patrol around Abyei in December.

But the northern army’s 31st Brigade, with 600 troops, remains in the town. Its commander, Brig. Gen. Abdel-Bagi Abdallah, says he has no intention of leaving until an agreement is reached on the north-south boundary.

The redeployment “will never happen, except if the president says so,” Abdallah told The Associated Press at the northern army’s barracks, one of the only modern compounds in a town otherwise made of a sprawling maze of mud and thatched huts known as “tukuls.”

Abdallah insisted the situation in the town was “stable.”

The former southern rebels from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army have a brigade posted some seven miles to the south. But many of its soldiers drift in and out of town to visit relatives.

Col. David Ogucholi, the ranking SPLA officer in Abyei, said it was “very, very important” that the Sudanese military pull back “to avoid incidents.”

Amid the stalemate, there is effectively no government to provide services to the burgeoning population of refugees.

Deng’s commission is meant to do so, but it has little to offer. His office is empty except for a computer still in its packaging because there is no electricity.

The U.N.’s World Food Program feeds 19,000 of the returned refugees.

EL-FASHER, Sudan – A joint United Nations-African Union (AU) force took charge of peacekeeping in Darfur on Monday, seeking to end almost five years of fighting in the western Sudanese region.

The force replaces a struggling AU mission. The plan is for it ultimately to comprise 20,000 soldiers and 6,000 police, but numbers are currently only about a third of those levels.

AU troops swapped their green headgear for U.N. blue berets to mark the handover at a ceremony held in front of a big crowd and amid tight security at a base in El-Fasher in the north of the region.

However, the change was unlikely to bring much immediate change for the residents of Darfur where an estimated 200,000 people have died.

The joint force was approved by the U.N. Security Council on July, 31, but its deployment has proved problematic.

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has opposed non-African troops, delayed allocating land to the force, demanded the right to disable the mission’s communications during “security operations” and refused night flights.

Rights groups have also criticised the international community — mainly Western nations — for refusing to provide 24 helicopters, seen as vital for the mission to function effectively in the vast region.

BAN DEMANDS MORE

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for more personnel and equipment to help transport peacekeepers by land and air.

“If we are to have a real impact on the situation on the ground within the first half of 2008, these deployments must happen far more swiftly than they have done so far,” he said in a statement read out for him at the ceremony.

He also called for a genuine ceasefire and for all parties to return to talks. The latest round of talks was held in Libya in October, but quickly fizzled out when major rebel groups boycotted them .

“I therefore urge all the parties to cease all military action and turn their energies, with the support of the AU-UN mediation, to the substance of the negotiations as soon as possible, and to come to the negotiating table to settle their differences,” he added.

There are currently around 7,000 troops and 1,200 police in the AU force.

Ethiopia and Egypt will each send 850 troops early in the new year to serve with a joint United Nations-African Union force in Sudan’s Darfur region, an AU official told Reuters in Addis Ababa on Monday.

“Ethiopia and Egypt will send a battalion, numbering 850 troops each , as the first batch of their contribution to the UN-AU Joint African Peacekeeping force in Darfur,” Assane Ba, spokesman for the AU Peace and Security Commission told Reuters.

“Troops from Asian countries are also expected to be deployed in Darfur early in the new year,” he added.

Ethiopia has pledged to deploy up to 5,000 troops to the joint mission.

The conflict flared in February 2003 when rebels took up arms against the government, saying Khartoum discriminated against non-Arab farmers and neglected the region. Khartoum mobilised Arab militia to help quell the revolt.

CRAWFORD, Tex. — President Bush signed legislation on Monday allowing state and local governments to cut investment ties with companies doing business in Sudan, even as he expressed concerns that the bill could interfere with his right to set foreign policy.

The measure, called the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act, is aimed at pressuring Sudan to end the violence in the Darfur region, where 200,000 people have been killed and more than two million driven from their homes in a four-year conflict that Mr. Bush has termed a genocide.

The bill, which passed both houses of Congress unanimously, makes it easier for mutual funds and private pension fund managers to sell their investments and allows states to prohibit debt financing for companies that do business in Sudan. It also requires companies seeking contracts with the federal government to certify that they are not doing business in Sudan.

“I share the deep concern of the Congress over the continued violence in Darfur perpetrated by the government of Sudan and rebel groups,” Mr. Bush said in a statement issued from his ranch here, where he planned to celebrate the new year with his wife, Laura, and some friends.

But the administration has expressed reservations about the bill, and Mr. Bush’s signature was accompanied by a proviso known as a signing statement, in which he said he was reserving the authority to overrule state and local divestment decisions if they conflicted with foreign policy. The statement said the measure “risks being interpreted as insulating” state and local divestment actions from federal oversight.

Mr. Bush has long sought an effective way to press Sudan to end the violence in Darfur, and he has been under intense pressure from human rights advocates to do more. The administration imposed stiff economic sanctions on the Sudanese government at the end of May, trying to force it to accept a United Nations-led peacekeeping force.

On Monday, formal authority was transferred from the current African Union peacekeeping force to a joint United Nations-African Union mission. But advocates complained that the deployment was delayed for months because of bureaucratic foot-dragging by the Sudanese government.

The peacekeeping force will be staffed far below the levels set by the United Nations Security Council when it voted unanimously in July to deploy 26,000 troops to try to stop the violence in Darfur.

As planned, the peacekeeping force would have been the largest such effort in the world, costing about $2 billion in its first year and drawing on military and police forces from the African Union and the United Nations.

Instead, after months of wrangling, the force that made its debut on Monday had 9,000 troops, United Nations officials said. Experts worry that it may never get to the level where it will make any difference in the region’s troubles.

“What we are seeing and hearing is a reprisal of their same stall-and-delay tactics,” said Allyn Brooks-LaSure, a spokesman for the Save Darfur Coalition.

The coalition, an umbrella group of more than 170 organizations, has been waging a “Divest in Darfur” campaign aimed at big investment companies like Fidelity and Vanguard, highlighted by the question “Is your mutual fund funding genocide?” After a State Department official testified that the divestment bill might not be necessary, the coalition put together a letter-writing campaign urging Mr. Bush to sign it.

“The Congress passed this measure unanimously in both chambers, and I think that sent a strong message to the White House,” Mr. Brooks-LaSure said. “We believe they were right to heed that message.”

NAIROBI, Kenya — Child malnutrition rates have increased sharply in Darfur, even though it is home to the world’s largest aid operation, according to a new United Nations report.

The report showed that 16.1 percent of children affected by the conflict in Darfur, a vast, turbulent region in western Sudan, are acutely malnourished, compared with 12.9 percent last year. For the first time since 2004, the malnutrition rate, a gauge of the population’s overall distress, has crossed what United Nations officials consider to be the emergency threshold.

Just as important, the increase has occurred despite the efforts of more than 13,000 relief workers in Darfur, who work for 13 United Nations agencies and some 80 private aid groups, and draw from an annual aid budget of about a billion dollars. Aid officials said they were concerned that even with all these resources, the condition of the people in Darfur seemed to be getting worse.

“This is a big deal,” said Jean Rigal, the head of a branch of Doctors Without Borders in Sudan. “The system is not working as expected.”

Dr. Rigal said he was not exactly sure why child malnutrition rates were rising. But he cited more insecurity, restricted access for relief workers and a fresh round of displacements because of tribal fighting.

“There are many hypotheses,” he said.

The report seems to confirm what aid officials in Darfur have been saying for much of the past year: that the increasingly chaotic security situation, both inside the enormous camps of displaced people and in the desiccated rural areas that are very difficult to reach even in the best of times, has gotten to the point that it is hampering the delivery of much needed emergency food.

“The United Nations has been sounding the alarm about the deterioration of the nutritional situation in Darfur for months,” said Stephanie Bunker, a spokeswoman for the United Nations’ humanitarian operations.

She said that attacks on aid workers were up 150 percent and that “civilians continue to be displaced as a result of attacks from all sides, with almost 290,000 displaced in Darfur this year alone. Many camps for the displaced can no longer absorb new arrivals, and tensions are rising.”

Sudanese officials said that the United Nations was exaggerating the problems, and that life in Darfur had actually gotten better recently.

Still, United Nations officials say the number of zones they could not reach has steadily increased this year, because of the attacks on aid workers and food convoys. Much of this violence seems to be a result of the fragmentation of the conflict, with rebel groups splintering into warring factions and formerly allied militias turning on one another.

To counter this, the United Nations and the African Union are trying to send in an expanded, joint peacekeeping force. But that deployment has been delayed by bureaucratic battles with the Sudanese government and the reluctance of developed countries to supply high-tech equipment, like helicopters.

As a result, people in Darfur are beginning to lose hope, and that may be another factor taking a toll on their health, several aid officials said.

“There is a psychological effect here,” said one aid official in Sudan who did not want to be identified because he feared reprisals from the Sudanese government. “These people have been in these camps for years now, and the energy that was around a few years ago and the hopes that this situation might be over soon and people could go home — all that’s gone now.”

He said that depression could affect how mothers care for their children, and that the overall malaise in the camps would make poor health conditions worse.

Darfur has been a humanitarian crisis since 2003, when rebels frustrated by a long history of marginalization attacked government forces. The government responded by arming tribal militias to wipe out the rebels and the civilians supporting them. Villages were burned, and countless women were raped; more than 200,000 people have died, according to conservative estimates.

From the beginning, the United Nations has used child malnutrition rates to assess the direness of the situation in Darfur. In 2004, when the conflict was raging, with waves of marauding horsemen sweeping the countryside, the acute malnutrition rate among the conflict-affected children was 21.8 percent. Then, in 2005, as hundreds of millions of dollars of resources were poured into the region, that rate dropped to 11.9 percent. It rose slightly to 12.9 percent last year. The United Nations considers 15 percent to be the emergency threshold.

The new United Nations report is based on information collected in August and September from thousands of Darfurians affected by the conflict, including those living in squalid camps (the United Nations estimates roughly 2.2 million people have been displaced by fighting). The report cited “consistently poor infant and young child feeding practices” and a “deterioration in the overall food security situation.”

The report also showed that the percentage of Darfurians growing their own crops had decreased this year. The people surveyed said that insecurity and a lack of access to their farms were the main reasons, though Sudanese officials have hypothesized that some Darfurians may have simply grown dependent on food aid and chosen to stop farming.

Malnutrition was highest among young children, between 6 months and 29 months old, and in North Darfur State, which is sparsely populated and very dry.

The report highlighted improvements in access to clean water and more people using latrines. And the rate of severe acute malnutrition — the worst cases — remained the same as last year at 1.9 percent. Child malnutrition is measured by using a ratio of weight versus height, and the severity is determined by how much the ratio deviates from the standards for healthy children.

Malnutrition rates are a highly sensitive subject in Sudan, and Sudanese government officials have objected to some of these findings, taking issue with the survey methodology and the overall characterization of the problem.

“It’s true, there is a gap of food in Darfur, and the conflict is not settled yet,” said Rabie A. Atti, a government spokesman. “But from our information, the situation is better now than before.”

1. The crisis in the CPA unfolded with a speed that was both unexpected and alarming. At the time of writing, the SPLM and NCP have patched up their differences. But the repercussions of the crisis will continue in Sudanese politics for some time.

2. The crisis has revealed and accelerated underlying political trends. The major dimensions of this include, (a) collapse in confidence between the NCP and SPLM; (b) deepening internal dissension within the SPLM, alongside an NCP strategy of entryism into SPLM ranks in the South; (c) political realignment in the North in which the NCP reaches out to the sectarian parties; and (d) entrenchment of the NCP and security in survival mode.

3. The SPLM’s failure to build institutions since the CPA is becoming more and more evident. This failure is evident both within the party and the GoSS and prefigures political crises in the future.

4. In the longer term, the collapse of confidence between the NCP and SPLM leadership means that GoSS support for secession is more likely. But it also means that the steady implementation of the CPA is far less likely, so that smooth progression towards the referendum is becoming even more difficult. Given that the NCP and SPLM are unlikely to be able to make joint plans for a peaceable separation scenario, planning for these eventualities should be a priority for the international community.

5. Darfur’s politics have reshuffled, but perhaps in a more significant way than the routine commotion of the rebel fragments. The withdrawal of the Abbala militia led by Himati from cooperation with GoS is a very significant development. Especially important is Himati’s cooperation with Abdel Wahid al Nur, which provides him with access to defensible terrain in Jebel Marra and an opening for political legitimacy. This leaves the GoS vulnerable in South Darfur. This may be the augur for a new war (both sides are mounting military operations), or it may be the prelude to a demonstration of strength by Himati, followed by a new bargaining session with the GoS.

6. UNAMID should be able to make some positive contributions to the situation in Darfur, including perimeter protection of IDP camps, building confidence with the Arabs, and training local commanders in how to conduct themselves during a ceasefire. The UNAMID deployment may also be an opportunity for the UN and U.S. to declare victory and refocus their efforts.

7. The fighting in Chad indicates the unresolved nature of that countries crisis and the continuing interlinkage with Sudan. The GoS fears that the EU force in Chad will provide the air assets and special forces needed to augment UNAMID in order to operationalize whatever plans the U.S., France and Britain have for Sudan.

The Crisis in the CPA

8. The crisis of confidence in the CPA unfolded with a speed that was both unexpected and alarming. The background was continuing dissension between NCP and SPLM over aspects of CPA implementation and especially a proposed cabinet reshuffle in which the SPLM wanted to remove Dr. Lam Akol as foreign minister. The continuing prevarication by the NCP on approving the reshuffle was a relatively minor issue in itself, but the SPLM has as yet insufficient mastery of the procedures of governmental politics to be able to unlock the problem to its advantage.

9. It appears that the SPLM initiated the walk-out from government with minimal internal consultation. It was primarily the work of several senior members who had not obtained a prior consensus among SPLM ministers in the GoNU or GoSS. It also had no agreed plan for what would be the next step. This group—and the SPLM in general—has gained confidence from the way in which its action as focused attention on its issues. However, the SPLM has played one of its strongest cards at an early stage, over some relatively minor issues, and has little else to show for it. Having set a deadline of January 2008 for certain demands, the SPLM ran the risk of setting a trap of its own making—what was it to do if the demands were not fulfilled? Meanwhile, the crisis has shone a spotlight on the SPLM’s own internal divisions.

10. The NCP strategy appears to be to wait for the SPLM to make mistakes and to quietly point out that most aspects of the CPA are being relatively well implemented, and argue that the SPLM itself is responsible for the problems. Prominent among the latter are the failure thus far to relocate SPLA forces south of the internal border and the poor performance of the GoSS, whose legislature has passed only four bills. The NCP would dearly love to have the CPA reopened so that it can renegotiate a series of key issues, and it senses that in due course this will happen. The SPLM leadership realizes that this would open a Pandora’s Box and so has rebuffed suggestions for a partial reopening of the CPA.

11. The Abyei issue is central to the crisis, in part because each side prefers to make it so. Real issues underlie the dispute, especially the fact that a large proportion of the oil reserves in Northern Sudan lie underneath Abyei, and the fact that a significant proportion of the SPLM leadership hails from the district. The Abyei impasse reveals the extreme difficulty of resolving partition questions where ‘hard’ borders are concerned—borders that allow for no flexibility.

12. Neither side is prepared for war at this stage. But the decentralized nature of command and control among the militaries and security services of both parties means that incidents are probable. It is testament to the effectiveness of the joint military structures that security has been good up to now.

13. The exchange of threats between FVP Salva Kiir and President Bashir is a clear signal for the militaries on both sides to begin preparations for future hostilities. Kiir’s statement that he did not trust the President was unfortunate, made worse by the fact that he said it while in Washington. He may have been responding to Bashir’s statement that his visit to America had not been approved by the President—an irksome assertion of authority. However, directing this jibe personally at Bashir rather than generally at the NCP was certain to wound Bashir’s sense of dignity. Bashir’s reaction, in the form of a statement to the Popular Defence Forces in Wad Madani contained a dose of hyperbole—as is normal when he is addressing PDF or mujahidiin rallies—but his call for remobilization of the PDF (which is supposed to be downsized under the CPA) is disturbing.

14. By mid-December, the NCP and SPLM had resolved most of the immediate issues before them, with the significant exception of Abyei, allowing for the SPLM to return to the GoNU and for differences to be patched up. However, the fundamental issues of mutual distrust have not been resolved.

15. The key question facing the Sudanese political class is whether the NCP has a genuine intention to implement the key provisions of the CPA, namely democratization and self-determination for the South. There is little doubt that a truly free and fair election would reduce the NCP’s representation in the National Assembly to well below its current majority. Elections are scheduled to be held almost exactly twenty years after the 1989 National Salvation Revolution or coup d’etat. The record in power of the NCP-NIF over those two decades has not won the hearts and minds of most Sudanese and, as with any incumbent party, there will be an electoral price to be paid. Losing power would potentially mean not just losing office but also being forced to abandon control of the security institutions, with potential consequences for individual accountability for past actions. Similarly, a free and fair referendum in the South would, on present trends, result in a vote for secession.

16. In this context, the NCP’s favored option is likely to be delay, focused especially on the key elements of democratization, including the freedom of the press, the formulation of a new security and intelligence act, and allowing opposition political parties and civil society organizations to operate freely without intervention from the security organs.

Inside the SPLM

17. It is remarkable that, given the warm relations between the SPLM and western governments, the decision-making processes at the top of the SPLM remain inscrutable. They are just as opaque as those in the NCP and security cabal. This reflects FVP Salva Kiir’s background as an intelligence officer.

18. On taking charge of the SPLM in 2005, Kiir’s priority was the political consolidation of Southern Sudan. His great achievement was to bring the SSDF into the SPLA. But the logical next step, which is forging the new and broader SPLA into a unified army of Southern Sudan, is facing immense challenges. At the time when the CPA was signed, the SPLA was led by some skilled and courageous commander but had not established the organizational capabilities required for a regular army. With a substantial budget but limited organizational infrastructure, the temptation facing the GoSS is to adopt a strategy of buying security through cash payments to commanders and militia leaders, to the extent of even buying loyalty from groups in Northern Sudan, in preference to building a professionalized army.

19. Garang overcame his internal organizational weaknesses with two factors. One, he articulated a powerful vision for the transformation of Sudan, which attracted a wide swathe of Northern Sudanese. Two, he was effective in enlisting the support of the region. Many of his military and political successes were delivered by friends in neighboring governments. Kiir has not yet managed to emulate these. However, as his visit to Ethiopia indicates, he is working to make up the deficit.

20. The recent infighting within the SPLM, which culminated in the dismissal of two former ministers (Telar Deng and Aleu Ayieny), showed the widening rift within the leadership. The two dismissed ministers are very influential within their constituencies in Bahr al Ghazal and can be expected to create difficulties for the GoSS unless the SPLM political bureau takes speedy action to deal with the issues. Meanwhile, the NCP strategy for dealing with the SPLM is to foster divisions (it will exploit the rifts that are currently surfacing) and try to control elements of the GoSS from within by purchasing the loyalty of individuals, using its organizational skills wherever it has limited executive power under the CPA, and maintaining a commercial presence in towns.

NCP Realignment

21. The biennial congress of the NCP met in late November, with the leadership able to evaluate its relations with the SPLM and respond accordingly. There was vigorous debate, especially between those who feel that the party has retreated from its commitments to democratization, and the security leadership. The upshot was a decision to reach out to other Northern parties, especially the Democratic Unionist Party and the Umma Party. Implicitly, this is the offer of a political alliance.

22. The Northern party leaders are responding cautiously but with serious intent. Former Prime Minister Sadiq el Mahdi has been steadily rebuilding the base of the Umma Party, which is a significant if diminished force. He would not rule out such a coalition but will try to extract a high price. Mohamed Osman Mirghani, head of the DUP, is likely to return from exile in Egypt early in 2008. He would probably welcome such a coalition. Even the Sudan Communist Party might entertain the option of this realignment. Hassan al Turabi’s Popular Congress is not on the list of potential allies but it has been allowed to hold its own party congress. In the background is the committee headed by the former head of state, General Abdel Rahman Suwar al Dahab, which is seeking to explore new terrain for a consensus of Northern political groups. It is very likely that we will now see a period of political posturing and jockeying, with commitments made and broken—in short, business as usual among the Northern political parties.

23. A major implication of this strategy are that the NCP would no longer embrace the SPLM as its ally in the North, though it would almost certainly continue to do so in the South. Instead, the NCP and some of the Northern parties would form a common front for the elections, based on Islam and national unity, with Omer al Bashir as the joint candidate for President.

24. One major attraction of this strategy for the NCP is that such an electoral alliance and the certain victory that it entails would give it an extremely strong measure of legitimacy, something that has always eluded it. This would also assist in providing a short-cut to bypass many of the trickiest pre-election issues. The census and voter registration exercises required by the CPA are technically essential for the South only—the North (excepting Darfur) can proceed with an election based on the existing civil registration system and existing constituencies. If the census were to be delayed, and consequently new voter registration and the demarcation of new constituencies were to fall behind schedule, this would become a problem exclusively for the South. It is possible to envisage a scenario in which elections are held across Northern Sudan, though restricted to major towns and a few secure areas in Darfur, and are postponed in South Sudan, giving the NCP the perfect rationale to argue that it has more democratic legitimacy than the SPLM. This would have many implications, including (a) an argument that the referendum on self-determination should be postponed until such time that South Sudan can conduct a complete, free and fair election, and (b) an argument that the Darfur peace process should include representatives of all the political parties with members elected in Darfur.

25. Underpinning all NCP moves is a strategy that might be called ‘the politics of delay.’ The arts of procrastination, equivocation and holding agreements in suspense are essential skills for any Sudanese politician, and the NIF-NCP government has remained in power since 1989 through its mastery of these tactics. The problems of Sudan are so inherently intractable that any attempts to impose quick fixes inevitably fail, exhausting and discrediting their architects. The NCP relies on this feature of Sudanese political reality to wear out its adversaries while it focuses on its minimal political agenda of remaining in power.

NCP-SPLM Relations

26. The SPLM is emerging from the CPA crisis realizing that it cannot sunder its alliance with the NCP, but it has no trust in the NCP. The NCP has more options and the core strategy of its leaders is to hang on to power and exhaust its foreign critics and adversaries. Each side has a ‘Plan B’ under active consideration.

27. The NCP, SPLM and diplomatic community in Khartoum officially conduct their business on the basis of efforts towards achieving the CPA, while knowing well that more pessimistic outcomes are more probable. The diplomats focus on achieving the best case, while the military commanders plan for the worst. This has the implication that if the best case fails to materialize, only the military are prepared for what may happen next. How can diplomats and civilian political leaders prepare for sub-optimal outcomes such as separation? It would make much sense for the parties to begin jointly to chart scenarios, make contingency plans, and set up discreet mechanisms for handling less-ideal outcomes such as separation. A major obstacle to doing this is the lack of trust between the parties, which means that each is instead second guessing the other and secretly developing parallel strategies for what will happen in the case of separation. This is a recipe for disaster. Opportunities exist for a trusted intermediary to open a space for discreetly convening discussions on the range of possible futures for Sudan.

Darfur: The Conflict

28. The main struggle in Darfur remains the contest over the allegiance of the Arabs. The locus of this is South Darfur, specifically at the Abbala militia who relocated to South Darfur earlier this year. At the time of writing, this is translating into a GoS assault on Abbala militia positions around south and east Jebel Marra. It may escalate further in the coming month as the militia counterattacks in South Darfur.

29. The largest Abbala blocs are now completely outside GoS control. The most important of these is the powerful grouping headed by Mohamed Hamdan ‘Himati’, which has signed a memorandum of understanding with the SLA-Abdel Wahid forces in Jebel Marra. Himati has been extensively armed by the GoS over the last year but that patronage has not translated into reciprocal loyalty. Himati’s challenge is how much he can unify the numerous Arab armed groups (he appears to have won over some unaffiliated groups and police units) and the extent to which he can win the confidence of the various fragments of the SLA. He has good relations with the Fur but not with the Zaghawa. As soon as it lost the active support of the Himati group, the GoS lost control over the entire territory beyond the confines of Nyala to the north. Should this group decide to take the offensive, it is unlikely that the government would be in a position to offer serious resistance.

30. Himati has not stated his political agenda. It remains to be seen whether his alliance with the SLA is strategic or tactical. Is this the prelude to an ambitious political plan in which an Arab-Fur alliance seeks complete control of Darfur and forces a new political dispensation on the GoS? Or is it no more than a tactic to assert the importance of the Arabs and demand a higher price from both Khartoum and the international community? Himati is extremely well-armed and has already seen off attacks by militia and helicopter gunships, though more are expected. But he is desperately short of the educated people needed if he is to be a credible political figure, and needs the legitimacy that the alliance with Abdel Wahid promises. He also has a major liability in the form of his past human rights record. His were the forces that trashed Wakhaim and terrorized Mellit and al Fashir.

31. The struggle over the allegiance of the Baggara is intense and unresolved. With the GoS loss of most Abbala support, the position of the Baggara, and especially the Baggara Rizeigat, becomes ever-more crucial. The success of the nazir of the Rizeigat, Saeed Madibu, in keeping his tribe neutral has been gradually eroded and he is facing a serious challenge from more militantly pro-GoS groups within the Rizeigat. The GoS has created a new locality, Bahr el Arab, carved out of el Da’ien, which will logically become the power base of this group and its militia. But if the tribe is split down the middle it will not be an effective military force. This is probably the reason why the GoS proposed a relative of the nazir’s as commissioner for the new locality, as a signal to Madibu that if he shifted his position, he could retain his overall power.

32. Government attempts to control the Darfur Arabs using money and Khartoum-based Darfurian Arab politicians are having increasingly less and less success. Loyalty is subject to rapid price inflation. Local Darfurian Arabs have lost all trust in their cousins who have risen to high office or become wealthy in Khartoum. One consequence of this is that the Arab supremacist ideology as demonstrated in the Arab Gathering and its activities has virtually disappeared. The conflict is now largely a local resource grab intertwined with organized crime.

33. The IDPs remain militant and the focus of uncompromising opposition to the GoS and DPA. Several of the major IDP camps are becoming major security hazards, due to a combination of self-arming by the residents, the GoS injection of its own armed clients into the camps (many of whom have either switched sides or have divided loyalties), and the growth of organized crime syndicates. The GoS is sorely tempted to try to disperse some of the larger and more militant camps, notably Kalma. While it has the intent it does not have the capacity and if it tries it will just be a public relations disaster. Much better is to recognize the reality that the camps are here to stay, are already socially and economically integrated into the cities and will only become more so, and invest in normalizing them—and the towns—accordingly.

34. The government counteroffensive against JEM and SLA-Unity in west Kordofan and Haskanita appears to have achieved its aim of minimizing further infiltration into Kordofan by the Darfur rebels. Security and the NCP has followed this up with buying back the loyalty of west Kordofan militia who had shown support for the rebels. But this does not address the underlying, and continuing, grievances and flashpoints within Kordofan. Additional reported JEM raids on oil installations in Kordofan illustrate the vulnerability of the region.

Darfur: Peace and Protection

35. The Sirte process has coincided with sharp security deterioration in Darfur, including a further proliferation of formally-named armed groups and the new militancy of the Arabs. The process of the fragmentation of the Zaghawa-led rebel groupings and Arab realignment was underway before Sirte and would have occurred without it. However, the way in which the peace process has been handled, keeping the door open to any group that has demonstrated an armed presence on the ground, has not helped. Even if the UN-AU mediation were to decide to call time on the admission of new armed movements to the talks, the damage has already been done, and the cap on new representation would not be treated as a credible action.

36. Without credible Fur representation (i.e. Abdel Wahid or a figure with his stature) and without Arabs who truly represent both Abbala and Baggara, the Sirte process is in danger of becoming merely the arena in which the Zaghawa fragments play out their interminable internal realignments. In terms of retaining or enhancing a united position for the Fur, Abdel Wahid has played his cards well. International efforts to undermine him or divide his support base have not succeeded. His memorandum of understanding with Himati may realign the politics of Darfur’s rebellion and once again make him the pivotal figure. The SPLM efforts in Juba have not succeeded in elevating Ahmad Abdel Shafi to sufficient stature to challenge Abdel Wahid.

37. There is no clear way ahead for the Darfur peace process. Because of non-stop real-time public commentary by advocacy groups, which have instant answers to every problem, diplomats no longer have the option of admitting there is no solution within reach, and taking the time to study and reanalyze the problem. The most likely scenario is one in which the current developments—the new Arab-Fur alliance, the deployment of UNAMID, Khartoum-Washington relations—play out over a year or so before any of the major players are ready to commit themselves seriously to any new process. We should be preparing ourselves for a one or two year containment strategy.

38. The UNAMID deployment introduces an element of uncertainty into Darfur which makes it difficult to move forward politically. UNAMID will need to work hard to be relevant to the realities of Darfur. It can certainly do perimeter patrolling around IDP camps, but is only a modest advance on AMIS. One essential step for AMIS and UNAMID over the coming months is confidence building with the Arabs. A second is to provide training to commanders of armed groups and militia in how a ceasefire works. Another one is a strategy for the IDP camps—the DPA plan for a community police force seems to have been forgotten in favor of a high-risk approach based on formed police units (gendarmes). During January, UNAMID will need to establish its credibility by showing that it is different from AMIS—but without provoking the active hostility of any significant group in Darfur. Key to UNAMID’s success will be the skill and leadership that its civil affairs section can exercise.

39. The Darfur-Darfur Dialogue and Consultation cannot formally proceed under current political circumstances. But it can tackle some essential tasks, including bringing Darfur’s Arabs out of their current isolation from internationally-driven processes, building upon local reconciliation efforts where they have occurred, and articulating the basic demands of local communities.

Chad

40. The sharp eruption of violent conflict in Chad is the outcome of several factors. Most important is the non-implementation of the Sirte Accord between the Government of Chad and the rebel forces led by Mahamat Nouri (UFDD) and Timan Erdimi (RFC). The absence of any progress on implementing the accord is attributable to the fact that none of the parties involved had any real intention in doing so. President Idriss Deby deeply distrusts the two leaders and did not expect them to put aside their political differences or disarm their forces. Neither Mahamat Nouri nor Timan Erdimi expected Deby to honour the agreement either and would have feared for their lives in N’djamena. Sudanese security has continued to supply both forces. The agreement was signed chiefly to accommodate the Libyans.

41. The rebel attacks took place as soon as the Sirte ceasefire expired and was up for renewal. But the timing of the attack had much to do with the rebels’ expectation that the EU force would deploy in eastern Chad in January and would provide a significant military boost to the Deby government. Hence they wanted to strike first. The GoS fears that the EU troops in Chad will provide the air support and special forces units denied to UNAMID, and will be a mechanism for western-led military intervention through the back door. The upsurge in fighting just inside Darfur’s border with Chad is closely related to these dynamics in Chad.

42. Whatever the outcome of the fighting in Chad, we can expect the basic dynamics to continue for the immediate future. The Sudan government will certainly have other proxies it can support should Nouri or Erdimi or both of them fail to deliver. Khartoum is in this for the long haul.

Next Steps

43. The central short-term issue in Sudan of putting the CPA back on track has been achieved. More important is the challenge of re-establishing confidence between President Bashir and FVP Salva Kiir. Should that trust exist, then the NCP-SPLM partnership can begin to address Sudan’s numerous looming crises.

44. Attention to restoring the short-term health of the CPA should not divert attention from the fact that Sudanese politics is increasingly moving in a direction that demands new measures. Prominent among these is planning for bad and worst-case scenarios and seeking means whereby a peaceable partition could be achieved, if necessary.

45. There is no path to peace in Darfur within the foreseeable future. The deployment of UNAMID is chiefly significant because (a) it allows the UN and western governments to declare success and focus on political issues and especially the CPA and (b) it can be an umbrella for active civil liaison and dialogue. These opportunities should be taken.

46. The GoS is unlikely to make any new political concessions on the CPA or Darfur in the current circumstances of uncertainty and distrust. It will prefer to wait out the next year or two, exhausting its domestic and international adversaries, and manage the inevitable crises so as to stay in power.

Sudan has still not agreed to non-African troops or unrestricted night flights for the new 26,000-strong peacekeeping force for Darfur that is expected to take over on Jan. 1, a senior U.N. official said Thursday.

But Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Edmond Mulet said Sudanese leaders did take some “positive steps” on deployment of the joint United Nations-African Union force during discussions over the weekend in Lisbon, Portugal on the margins of a European Union-African summit.

In June, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir agreed to the deployment of the hybrid force without preconditions to replace the beleaguered and underfunded 7,000-strong AU force now on the ground in Darfur.

The U.N. Security Council agreed the force should be predominantly African — at Sudan’s insistence. Even though 90 percent of the ground troops and 75 percent of the proposed force are from Africa, Sudan has refused to approve Thai, Nepal and Nordic units, which the U.N. says are essential.

Mulet told reporters after briefing the Security Council said that he and another U.N. official met Sudanese officials in Lisbon and asked for “an official answer” on the Thai, Nepal and Nordic contingents. But they still have not received one, he said.

On night flights, the Sudanese agreed to allow them for medical evacuations “but we have stressed this is not enough for us,” Mulet said.

“We do need a blank authorization to fly at all times,” he said, adding that the issue will be discussed in upcoming talks in the Sudanese capital Khartoum.

The conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region has claimed more than 200,000 lives and uprooted 2.5 million people since ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated government in 2003. Critics accuse Sudan of arming the janjaweed Arab militias that have terrorized Darfur villages — a charge Khartoum denies.

Mulet said there was progress on other issues regarding the force. Sudan agreed to start talks on the Status of Forces Agreement proposed by the U.N. and AU rather than its own version which U.N. officials said would have made it impossible for the force to operate.

One Sudanese proposal would have allowed the government to “temporarily disable the communications network” in case of security operations to protect the country’s sovereignty. Another would have required the force to provide “advance notification to the government for all staff, troop and asset movements.”

Mulet said technical talks on the Status of Forces Agreement began Tuesday in Khartoum and were on a “fast track.”

The government also agreed to release U.N. communications equipment which had been impounded for two months and to allow the U.N. to use a logistics facility in El Obeid in Darfur’s neighboring region of Kordofan. It also agreed to allow seven helicopters to be based in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, Mulet said.

The world’s leaders say they care desperately about Darfur’s suffering, until they get distracted. It took years of international hand-wringing before the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution to send in 26,000 peacekeepers to replace a current force of 7,000, to try to halt the killing. With the deployment now set for Jan. 1, major countries are ignoring the U.N.’s appeals for essential aircraft, and Sudan’s government — which unleashed the genocide — is again reneging on its promises to cooperate.

Khartoum is now refusing to accept some non-African peacekeeping units — including a Thai infantry battalion and a Nepalese special forces unit — in what is intended to be a joint United Nations-African Union force. It is also trying to limit the peacekeepers’ use of helicopters, refusing to provide land for a peacekeeping base and insisting on other untenable restrictions, including advance notice of all troop movements.

Khartoum never seems to run out of ways to demonstrate its contempt for the United Nations.

After the International Criminal Court indicted Ahmad Harun, Sudan’s minister of state for humanitarian affairs, for war crimes in Darfur, Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, refused to turn him over for prosecution. Instead, Mr. Bashir put Mr. Harun on a committee overseeing deployment of the new peacekeeping mission.

President Bashir and his henchmen may be the worst problem, but not the only one.

There are serious questions about whether the United Nations can manage such a large peacekeeping operation. Meanwhile, major players — including South Africa, Russia, China, Ukraine and NATO — have not heeded a direct appeal from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to provide the helicopters and planes that the force will need to do its job, or even defend itself, in a region the size of France.

The United States has already flown in troops for the new force, promised $40 million in equipment and offered to pay 26 percent of the total cost of the operation. If others don’t step in quickly, Washington will need to twist their arms or do even more itself.

By some accounts, deaths in Darfur are down, but the region remains in severe crisis. People who flocked to refugee camps as a temporary escape from the government-backed janjaweed militias have been trapped there for nearly five years. Life inside the camps, where crime is rampant, is only slightly better than life outside. The rebel groups who claim to be Darfur’s defenders are increasingly fragmented and adding to the violence.

Darfuris have high hopes that the new United Nations-African Union mission will save them, but so far there is no peace to keep.

Sudan has showed time and again that it does not care about the suffering in Darfur. Without a lot more international pressure, Sudan will continue to obstruct the peacekeeping mission and spread ever more suffering and mayhem. China, one of Sudan’s major trading partners, and the Arab League must bring on that pressure. And the U.N. and other envoys must work full time for the resumption of peace talks.

The credibility of the Security Council is on the line. So are the lives of 2.5 million Darfuris.

The stakes in Sudan in terms of protecting human life may have no equal throughout the world today. As Darfur continues to churn and burn, the 2005 peace deal that ended a far deadlier war in Southern Sudan is at risk and in danger of eventual collapse. If it unravels, there will be no chance for peace in Darfur, and if Darfur continues to deteriorate, the likelihood increases dramatically of a return to what was—for 20 years—a far more destructive war in the South. [1]

The urgent task at hand, therefore, is to simultaneously and equally support both the resolution of Darfur’s crisis and the timely implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The CPA is the peace deal dealing primarily with the war in Southern Sudan, but it also provides a framework for a national solution. For the growing movement of activists who have committed themselves to work for an end to the genocide in Darfur, and for policymakers and negotiators working on Sudan, these two policy priorities must go hand-in-hand. The objective of the Darfur movement must be broadened to include achieving a sustainable and comprehensive solution for all of Sudan. The end to both crises rests in the same solution: the democratic transformation of the country, driven by strong internationally monitored peace agreements for the South, Darfur, and the East that are built on shared power, shared resources, and comprehensive political change.

Along with other members of the international community, the United States has a central leadership role to play—both in supporting the implementation of the CPA and the peace pact in Eastern Sudan, as well as in helping to broker an accord in Darfur. Acting on that leadership means ramping up U.S. diplomatic investments and working multilaterally, including to increase pressure on any party that would undermine efforts to achieve peace, particularly the ruling National Congress Party, or NCP, in Khartoum. Acting on that leadership also means strengthening U.S. and broader international support for the CPA, a signed agreement witnessed by the international community. The United States should also discontinue any effort to entertain negotiations outside the framework provided by the CPA, a course of action that could actually hasten a return to war in the South.

SOUTHERN SUDAN: A DEADLY PRECURSOR TO DARFUR

Darfur is the ruling National Congress Party’s latest destructive project, but it is certainly not unique. Sudan’s ruling National Islamic Front party, which now goes by the NCP label, took power in a military coup on June 30, 1989. For these last 18 years, the ruling party has been at war with virtually all of Sudan’s marginalized populations—in the North, South, East and West—and is primarily responsible for the war-related deaths of an estimated 2.5 million civilian noncombatants.

The bulk of civilian deaths over these last 18 years have occurred in the South of Sudan[2]. Seeking to ensure its control over the South’s land and its resources, the NCP armed and directed allied raiders—very similar to the Janjaweed militias in Darfur—to do much of the violent dirty work of killing and forcibly displacing Southern Sudanese civilians from their land. These marauding forces, like the Janjaweed today in Darfur, received backing from the Sudan Armed Forces, which in turn was supported by the Chinese government. Although the NCP’s methods of war in the South were nearly identical to what we have seen in Darfur, no one in a position of influence called it genocide, as then-Secretary of State Colin Powell did in the case of Darfur.

When the Bush administration took office in January 2001, it moved quickly to play a leading role in ending the war in Southern Sudan. At the time, a number of constituencies—Christian groups, human rights activists, and a core of highly motivated and invested members of Congress—worked in a bipartisan fashion to put the issue of Southern Sudan on the U.S. political map. While conservative Christian groups had the most influence with the Bush administration, it was ultimately a bipartisan, broad-based constituency for Sudan that empowered the Bush administration to mobilize quickly and take visible steps in pursuit of peace in the South.

A SUCCESSFUL PEACE DEAL IN SUDAN: IT CAN BE DONE

A full-blown U.S.-led effort was in place by early September 2001, headed by former Sen. John Danforth (R-MO), who worked hand-in-glove with Kenya and other regional states[3]. Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States represented a “troika” of countries that had been organized during the Clinton administration which helped bring leverage and ideas to the talks[4]. In the aftermath of September 11 and with Sudan on the U.S. list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism,” it took three years of tough negotiations between the NCP and the rebel Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement, or SPLM, to reach signature on the CPA. The Khartoum regime was able to delay signing by playing the international efforts to contain the crisis in Darfur off against the peace process in the South. The regime also successfully used its counterterrorism cooperation with the United States to further blunt any criticism of or consequences for delays in either the South or Darfur. By the time the CPA was signed in January 2005, however, the war in Darfur was in full swing.

Headed by Dr. John Garang, the SPLM negotiating team on the CPA pursued a vision of a “New Sudan” and focused on all of Sudan, not just the South. The very core of the CPA became a package of democratic processes. The three most important political milestones thus included in the CPA are a national census, local and national elections, and the referendum on the future status of the South. The results of the census will help to determine the percentage of seats that will be allocated, in advance of elections, to the North and South in the National Assembly. The elections themselves will ensure that those who occupy seats in the National Assembly are legitimate, elected leaders. Given popular sentiments throughout Sudan, the SPLM believed that fulfillment of the election provisions of the CPA, if aggressively monitored by the international community, would provide the opportunity for nonviolent change in Khartoum.

The SPLM pressed for these provisions out of the belief that the fundamental problem in Sudan was the absence of democratic governance. And it pushed for elections and nonviolent change notwithstanding the possibility that the people of the South might vote by referendum to separate legally from Sudan in 2011 because it wanted to increase the likelihood that Sudan would be a good neighbor to a newly independent South. Thus, the “New Sudan” vision sought to change all of Sudan for the better by ensuring that political representation was determined on the basis of a national census and free and fair elections. The CPA also envisioned the six-year “interim period” before the 2011 referendum to include an opportunity to make unity attractive to Southerners. Khartoum’s actions in Darfur and its foot-dragging on CPA implementation have significantly undermined the prospects for a pro-unity vote in the South.

Why would Khartoum sign such an agreement? The NCP essentially had little choice. It could not militarily defeat the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, or SPLA, the SPLM’s military arm. Meanwhile and significantly, the international community maintained intense pressure on Khartoum to conclude the CPA. Moreover, to the NCP, the nonviolent process outlined in the CPA appeared to buy it six and a half years of protection from a majority that opposed it. However, after signature and with the death of the SPLM’s leader, Dr. John Garang, the NCP reverted to type and began stonewalling, slow-rolling, and otherwise undermining the timely implementation of the Agreement.

LEMONADE BACK TO LEMONS?

Where does the CPA stand today, given the NCP’s efforts to undermine it and the international community’s less-than-forceful efforts to uphold it? The CPA, one of President Bush’s most significant foreign policy achievements, is severely at risk because of the following:

The NCP is doing all it can to ensure CPA-mandated elections are delayed and possibly canceled. In a country torn apart by decades of violence, the architecture for a credible election takes major time and effort to put in place, yet the NCP has delayed for months the release of funds for the census, a necessary prerequisite for elections, as part of its foot-dragging, brinksmanship approach to implementation.

The NCP creates numerous obstacles to the CPA-required drawing of boundaries between North and South, a prerequisite for defining election districts.

The NCP has not withdrawn its military forces from oil fields in the South in accordance with the CPA-stipulated timetable.

The NCP has refused the “final and binding” Abyei Boundary Commission report, which has frozen all efforts to establish a new local administration in violence-prone and oil-rich Abyei, which is entitled to its own referendum.

The SPLM suspended its participation in the national coalition government in October out of frustration with the NCP’s multiple efforts to undermine effective implementation of the CPA and the international community’s lack of attention and engagement on the problem. On November 2, however, President Bashir announced his government’s renewed commitment to the CPA. While a welcome sign at first glance, this statement should be viewed within the context of the NCP’s repeated bait-and-switch pattern of making unfulfilled promises designed to relieve international pressure. His latest words could thus signal another round of political maneuvering designed to blunt the impact of South Sudanese President Salva Kiir’s visit to Washington in the second week of November.

It is quite conceivable that, at a time of the NCP’s choosing, Khartoum could announce a postponement of elections scheduled for 2009. Such a step would herald the end of the CPA. It is also possible that Khartoum will continue to stall, and will do no better at implementing the terms of the CPA now than it has done in the recent past. Both risk a return to war beyond anything we have seen in Darfur.

INTERTWINED FATES: DARFUR AND THE SOUTH

The fates of Darfur and the South are deeply intertwined. The people of both regions have fought lengthy, deadly wars against the same regime, and are searching for an end to their chronic marginalization. Although their grievances are similar, they have not been a part of a united political front vis-à-vis the NCP. This is in part because Khartoum has managed to play the two conflicts off one another: During peace negotiations with the South, the NCP bought time by pointing to problems with Darfur. Now, with Darfur, the regime is using the CPA and tensions with the South to distract the international community and diminish external pressure on Darfur.

Additionally, during the negotiation of the CPA, the negotiators feared that the inclusion of Darfur’s rebels, who had not been fighting Khartoum for nearly as long nor had lost nearly as many lives, would change the parameters of the negotiations and further extend a very difficult process. It is clear, however, that both sets of rebels—from Darfur and the South—are afflicted by a common problem: an unaccountable government that refuses to share power, wealth, and resources with all of Sudan’s people, and which, rather than compromise, mounts military campaigns against its own civilians to try to silence their concerns. The only way to address this problem effectively is by pressuring Khartoum to comply fully with the agreements it has signed, to move forward constructively with the peace process in Darfur and on preventing the demise of the CPA, and to hold accountable those most responsible for egregious acts of violence.

Larry Rossin of the Save Darfur Coalition Board puts it this way:

“I have constantly been struck by how the CPA (South) and Darfur are portrayed by so many in the international community with a stake in one or the other as some sort of ‘zero-sum’ situation—you can only pressure the Sudanese government on Darfur and bring resources there at the expense of reduced support for and pressure on Khartoum for CPA implementation, or vice versa. I think the Sudanese government has figured this out and uses it to play the CPA-focused group of international community members off against the Darfur-focused group. In fact, of course, the sum really will be zero if the focus is not all-Sudan, because either one failing will drag the other down with it, as we are seeing. The challenge for the international community—and a theme for advocacy—is that we must break out of this zero sum mold, and break out of letting Khartoum play that game, and tackle all of Sudan as a whole.” [5]

AN UNFORTUNATE U.S. MIS-STEP

Despite being a key player in brokering the CPA, in October the United States undertook a dangerous diplomatic gambit that—if pursued—would lead to the unraveling of its own peace deal. The United States proposed a set of what it calls “confidence-building measures” that effectively abandoned full compliance with the CPA as the roadmap to peace. The measures proposed that China, Saudi Arabia and the United States mediate between the NCP and SPLM to formulate a “package deal” to solve the impasse around Abyei and the border. The problem with this proposal is that it abandons the provisions of the CPA that speak explicitly to Abyei and to the determination of the North-South border and instead offers an alternative that, one assumes, is perceived to be more palatable to Khartoum than the CPA. What the United States should be doing is to press all parties to implement the specific provisions of the CPA and, in the event of noncompliance, impose meaningful consequences. By avoiding this route and instead offering up a new process for resolving issues addressed by the CPA, the United States risks weakening the CPA further rather than strengthening it.

The U.S. proposal concluded by asking the parties to “look for additional political measures outside the CPA that can build confidence between the two parties (emphasis added).” While confidence-building measures are well and good, the fact is that the CPA is a detailed agreement, brokered carefully by external mediators and signed by both parties, that speaks clearly to the resolution of any issues surrounding Abyei and the border. To abandon those provisions is to risk abandoning a newfound and fragile peace.

When combined with the non-implementation of the Boundary Commission provisions of the Ethiopia-Eritrea deal, this would signal a significant departure from full implementation of peace deals in the Horn of Africa, ostensibly with U.S. support. What incentive, then, would anyone have to sign any deal going forward if major external actors would support the revisiting of those agreements when a more powerful signatory decides not to fully implement the given agreement?

This gambit by the United States should be given a public burial, and President Bush should make clear that the way forward for Southern Sudan is the full implementation of the CPA. The deal that ended the war in the South will be put on a slippery slope if an external actor—in this case the United States—begins to promote alternatives to the terms to which both parties have already agreed. The requirement moving forward is obvious: The NCP must be held to account and pressured to implement the agreement it signed, and in particular to move quickly to honor the provisions attendant to Abyei, the determination of the border, and the national census.

Pollyannaish U.S. expressions of optimism related to CPA implementation that don’t square with reality are not helpful either. For example, on November 3, U.S. Special Envoy Andrew Natsios told the BBC that the parties had agreed to implement all provisions of the CPA. A mere 8 days later, the high-level panel set up by the NCP and SPLM to resolve the current political stand-off between the two parties collapsed, due again to the impasse over Abyei and the border.

DEMOCRACY AND PEACE: MAKING THEM REAL

The international community must redouble its efforts to ensure the prompt implementation of the CPA and strike a just deal for Darfur, simultaneously. The United States and its partners should be pressing for genuine power- and wealth-sharing and throw robust support behind the process of democratic transformation that is stipulated by the CPA. Enabling an unreformed, all-powerful NCP at the center is a recipe for further war and mayhem. The CPA outlines an approach, on the other hand, that allows the people of Sudan to shape the destiny of their country.

Much greater energy must be invested in efforts to get the CPA back on track. But at the same time, energy must also be invested in the search for a deal for Darfur that reflects the CPA’s vision of democratic governance while also addressing Darfur’s unique circumstances. Each in their own way, activists, advocates, and policymakers need to pursue strategies that are built on the clear link between the fate of the people of Darfur and the fate of those in the South.

Meanwhile, and though the international community has stepped up its efforts to secure peace, much more must be done to ensure that Darfur’s civilians are protected from the ravages of ongoing violence. Arguing that the force must be “entirely” African as opposed to “predominantly” African as the U.N. Security Council authorized, Khartoum continues to obstruct the prompt deployment of UNAMID. Deployment is being further delayed by the failure of U.N. members to contribute the specialized battalions that are needed to ensure that UNAMID has full mobility and other critical capabilities. Against this backdrop, and as the people of Darfur wait for the protection force that has been promised, aid workers and humanitarian operations face increasing risks and obstacles.[6]

But ultimately, a lasting solution for Darfur is not possible if the focus is on Darfur alone. Activists and advocacy organizations committed to helping resolve the crisis in Darfur must broaden their scope to achieving a sustainable comprehensive solution for all of Sudan. Thus the grassroots Darfur movement must demand that the United States and other key governments end their piecemeal, sporadic engagement and instead address the whole of Sudan. All of Sudan’s peoples suffer from the same fundamental problem—the absence of democratic governance. The majority suffer the ravages of violence, orchestrated to a great extent by the NCP. The international community must conceive, achieve, and sustain an all-Sudan solution. Indeed, an effort focused on addressing both major crises in Sudan would potentially be much stronger and more effective than a one-at-a-time approach, given the overlap of players involved, the great similarity of problems faced, and above all the commonality of the cure: significantly increased multilateral pressure on the NCP (and, as required, the Darfur rebels and the GOSS if and when they present obstacles) aimed at securing a combination of peace agreements in the South, Darfur, and the East, monitored by the international community and fully implemented, in the context of the democratic processes stipulated by the CPA.

It is clear that the NCP holds most of the blame for faltering implementation of the CPA and the continued crisis in Darfur, yet the international community has failed to maintain the requisite pressure on the regime to both fulfill its obligations to implement the CPA and to halt its single-minded pursuit of a military solution in Darfur. The solution is rooted in the “3 Ps” of crisis response—peace, protection and punishment:

Peace: The State Department, with full-backing from the White House, must establish a full-time diplomatic team in the region, headed by a full-time White House envoy with two senior deputies, to maintain consistent, high-level pressure on implementation of the CPA while also helping to drive a peace process for Darfur.[7] The United States must enlist similar commitments from its allies—especially the U.K. and France—as well as from China, to demonstrate international consensus and commitment to a peaceful democratic process in Sudan, as stipulated by the CPA. Diplomacy must be matched by dollars. Promises made by the United States and other donors to provide economic aid to the South and to support the increased capacity of the new government of Southern Sudan must be delivered on now if the CPA is going to have a chance of survival.[8] The United States and others should also increase support to the GOSS’ efforts to unite Darfurians in preparation for further peace efforts in Darfur.

Protection: The United States and its allies must leverage an end to Khartoum’s stonewalling of the U.N.’s and AU’s request that it concur in the troop composition list for the U.N./AU hybrid force for Darfur and ensure that UNAMID has the requisite financial and logistical support to achieve its mandate to protect civilians.[9] The United States must work through the U.N. Security Council to maintain the U.N. Mission in Southern Sudan, or UNMIS, at current levels and support aggressive U.N. action to disarm militias that threaten to reignite war in the South.

Punishment: Peace and protection will not be achieved without imposing a cost on any party that obstructs the Darfur peace process and CPA implementation, or that commits crimes against humanity. The U.N. Security Council should convene an extraordinary session with the goal of passing a resolution that establishes clear benchmarks and penalties in the form of targeted sanctions. The United States and other states must increase their support and intelligence-sharing with the International Criminal Court in order to support further indictments against those most guilty of committing atrocities in Darfur.

The way forward is clear. A comprehensive solution to Sudan’s ills is required. And it is possible. Activists and advocates must focus on these essential ingredients encapsulated in the 3 Ps, and demand the United States take the lead in helping to bring an end to Sudan’s agony, once and for all.

[1]
The war in Southern Sudan cost upward of 2.25 million lives between 1983 and 2005.

[2]
For background reading on the war in Southern Sudan, see the International Crisis Group’s book on Southern Sudan, God, Oil and Country: Changing the Logic of War in Sudan, and subsequent Crisis Group reporting. Also see Eric Reeves’ ongoing Sudan coverage at www.sudanreeves.org.

[3]
The East African regional organization that convened the talks is called the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, and its envoy was General Lazaro Sumbeiywo.

[4]
Italy was also extremely helpful in this framework.

[5]
Correspondence with the authors, November 9, 2007.

[6]
John Prendergast, Colin Thomas-Jensen, and Julia Spiegel “How to Get the UN-AU Hybrid Force Deployed to Darfur,” ENOUGH Strategy Briefing #6, by, October 2007.

[7]
Such a presence would be both to push the parties toward agreed goals but also to help coordinate other external actors, particularly ones with unrealized leverage such as China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc.

[8]
U.S. and other aid will be key to supporting the GOSS in developing the kind of strong, democratic, and accountable institutions necessary for prosperity in the South. The United States in particular must use its leverage to encourage such accountability—backed by a transparent revenue base—as a prerequisite for real development in Southern Sudan.

[9]
In his latest report to the Security Council on the deployment of UNAMID (S/2007/653 of 5 November 2007), Secretary-General Ban emphasizes the impediment Khartoum’s failure to give its views on this list—over a month after it was provided to the authorities there—presents to UNAMID deployment. He also underscores the risks to UNAMID mandate implementation presented by the complete failure of member states to pledge heavy ground transport and rotary wing transport and light attack craft. Separately, at the time of writing, the Bush administration had requested $725 million for UNAMID, but Congressional leaders had decided to wait until the new year to act on that request.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged all nations Monday to help arrest two Sudanese accused of crimes against humanity and five Ugandans accused of abducting thousands of children and turning them into fighters or sex slaves.

Ban’s appeal came before the annual two-week meeting of the International Criminal Court, the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal based in The Hague, Netherlands, which has issued warrants for the arrests of the seven men.

”I urge all member states to do everything within their powers to assist in enforcing these warrants,” Ban said, stressing that ”the single most important determinant of success for any international tribunals is cooperation.”

Sudan’s U.N. ambassador, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, reiterated again that ”our people will not be handed over to the Hague for any trial.”

”The Security Council is a political organization and this (court) is a legal body, not part of the U.N. apparatus, and the secretary-general and the Security Council has no role at all in these things,” Mohamad said. ”Our judiciary system is very capable of trying whoever is accused.”

The Ugandan goverment has promised the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels not to hand over any members if they sign a peace deal.

The court can prosecute cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity but steps in only when countries are unwilling or unable to handle justice themselves.

Sudan is not one of the 105 countries that have ratified the 1998 Rome statute establishing the court, but the U.N. Security Council referred the Darfur case to the court in 2005, requiring that Sudan’s government and all other parties cooperate.

The tribunal has issued arrest warrants for former Sudanese interior minister Ahmed Muhammed Harun, who oversaw security in Darfur and was appointed Sudan’s humanitarian affairs minister after his indictment was announced, and Ali Kushayb, known as a ”colonel of colonels” among the Arab militias that have terrorized Darfur villages.

The court issued arrest warrants for five top commanders of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel group based in northern Uganda that is notorious for cutting off the hands, lips and ears of its victims.

The U.N. estimates the LRA has abducted 20,000 children who were forced to fight or become sex slaves during a 20-year anti-government insurgency.

Ban said he took ‘’some satisfaction” that since the tribunal began in July 2002, two rival Congolese militia leaders indicted by the court were arrested and transferred to The Hague for trial. Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga, charged with war crimes for recruiting and using child soldiers, is scheduled to be the first person tried by the court early next year.

But Ban noted there remain ”a number of outstanding arrest warrants that have to be executed.” He called the Congo ”one of the bloodiest conflicts in Africa,” where thousands of people ”including countless children, have become victims of mass atrocities and abuse.”

The conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region has claimed more than 200,000 lives and uprooted 2.5 million people from their homes since early 2003, when rebels from the ethnic African majority took up arms against the Arab-dominated government.

Critics accuse Sudan of retaliating by arming the Arab militias, known as janjaweed, and committing widespread atrocities against ethnic African civilians – a charge it denies.

Since July 2006, the Ugandan government and Lord’s Resistance Army have negotiated occasionally to end one of Africa’s longest-running conflicts. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s government promised not to hand over LRA suspects if they sign a peace deal.

The court’s meeting opened Friday with tough words from its president, Judge Philippe Kirsch, and and its chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, on the obligation to enforce the tribunal’s arrest warrants.

Richard Dicker, director of the international justice program at Human Rights Watch, said Friday that without a tough message from Ban, the Sudanese government may think it ”can flout this court at will” without the U.N. doing anything about it.

Johannesburg – The Elders came, they listened, and now they are recommending how to bring lasting peace to Darfur.

Drawing on lessons learned from an October trip to Sudan’s restive southern and Darfur regions, a group of retired statesmen – South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former US President Jimmy Carter, former Mozambique Minister of Education Graça Machel, and former UN Special Envoy and Nobel Laureate Lakhdar Brahimi – this week issued a report calling for rebel groups to participate in peace talks, for the government of Sudan to honor past peace treaties, and for the international community to give the money and manpower to a peacekeeping force that is struggling for credibility.

To read the full report and learn more, please visit www.theelders.org.

“We felt a moral imperative … to protect the people who are so vulnerable and to make our contribution to the promotion of peace,” said Mr. Tutu in a teleconference held Tuesday to announce the group’s new report. “Our primary goal is to amplify the voices of people who are not normally heard. Peace is possible if we take action now.”

The Elders, a group of 13 men and women, was formed by former South African President Nelson Mandela and his wife, Graça Machel, earlier this year. They’re supported by a group of private businessmen, including Virgin Air CEO Richard Branson, and foundations.

There were skeptics aplenty when the Elders announced earlier this year plan to take on the world’s knottiest problems, starting with Darfur. Some felt, and still feel, that the intrusion of yet another peace initiative may complicate matters and give Darfur’s warring parties another excuse to postpone cooperation. Yet with the current peace process in Darfur stalled – and few hopes of getting either the rebels or the government to the table in the near future – many experts hailed the Elders’ initiative as a chance to break the impasse.

“The Elders have a unique contribution to make to the world,” says John Prendergast, executive director of the Enough Project, a Washington-based advocacy group formed last year to “end genocide and crimes against humanity.” “They have a moral gravitas and a clarity of voice that would be heard and heeded at this moment in history.

“With no real leadership from the United Nations, the African Union, and the United States, the Elders could and should provide a compass toward a solution,” Mr. Prendergast adds. “The absence of that voice guarantees further deterioration in Darfur, and risks a return to war in the South.”

The recommendations issued in the Elders’ report, “Bringing Hope, Forging Peace,” call for:

An immediate cease-fire, by the government and its janjaweed militias, and the many rebel groups.

International assistance for a national census, to allow the promised 2009 elections to be considered fair and representative.

Rapid deployment of a mainly African peacekeeping force, along with the international funding and logistical support to make that peacekeeping force credible.

An end to attacks on humanitarian aid groups working with displaced people.

Perhaps most important was the Elders’ contention that peace in Darfur would be impossible if the current Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the 20-year civil war between northern and southern Sudan were allowed to falter.

“There is a real danger that this agreement will break down and war [between the North and South] will break out again,” said President Carter Tuesday. “If this happens the plight of the people of Darfur will be even worse than it has been.”

Mr. Carter said that his Carter Center has been invited by leaders of South Sudan to help mediate talks on the North-South agreement, but that Khartoum has rejected the idea.

Some experts argue that there are already too many peace initiatives on the Darfur issue, and that what the Elders should focus on is using their moral suasion to get all the parties to honor the peace agreements that have already been signed, but are all too often ignored.

“Opening up a new peace process is not going to help anyone,” says Ted Dagne, a Sudan expert at the Congressional Research Service in Washington. “If anything, it’s dangerous. What is critical is to get the government of Sudan to honor the agreements they have already signed.”

“For the past four years, the US, UN, the AU, and other governments have been engaged in negotiation efforts on Darfur,” says Mr. Dagne. “The Government of Sudan has signed a number of peace agreements over the past decade, including the North-South agreement in 2005 and the Darfur Agreement in 2006. The problem remains that once agreements are signed, the Government of Sudan has a record of not honoring agreements.”

Carter said Tuesday that the government of Sudan should stop putting obstacles in the way of the deployment of a joint AU-UN force (UNAMIL) that is supposed to be on the ground in Darfur by the end of the year, and that the Elders had “very frank and firm discussions” with the Sudanese government during their October trip.

“The most important thing the international community can do is to ensure that the pledges for UNAMIL be honored,” said Carter.

Disarray among Darfur’s profusion of rebel groups and a peace talk boycott by key leaders of the insurgency have created barriers to resolving five years of conflict in the war-torn region.

The lack of unity among the rebel groups has left open the door to continued ethnic bloodshed, despite the persistent efforts of international mediators to bring the groups together.

The absence of Abdul Wahid Mohammed Nur, leader of the Sudan Liberation Army, SLA, was a critical factor in the dismal failure of last month’s talks in Sirte, Lybia. As a senior leader of the rebels, he and others have insisted on a ceasefire agreement with the Sudan government before talks begin.

The 39-year-old Nur, a former lawyer now living in exile in Paris, refused to attend the talks until a no-fly zone was declared over Darfur and violence against Darfuris was stopped.

The Sudan government, however, would not comment on the issue.

Although the conflict in western Sudan was labeled a genocide in 2003 by the United States, little has been done to stop the violence despite the presence of several thousand soldiers provided by the Africa Union.

The war and the effects of famine and disease have killed at least 200,000 people and displaced two million in Darfur.

The Sudanese government in Khartoum says only 9,000 people have died.

Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court, ICC, has charged Sudanese minister Ahmed Harun and Janjaweed militia commander Ali Kushyb with working together to attack, persecute, murder, rape, torture and forcibly transfer Fur, Zaghawa and Masalit populations out of Darfur, with many fleeing to neighbouring Chad.

The court says Harun and Kushayb committed 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the forcible transfer of at least 60,000 civilians in west Darfur.

Other key rebel factions in Darfur boycotting the talks were the Justice and Equality Movement, JEM, led by Khalil Ibrahim, and the SLA-Unity, a faction of the original SLA led by Mini Minawi.

Contacted by IWPR, Nur said he objected to the choice of Libya as a venue because President Muammar Gadaffi is too close to Khartoum government.

Nur cited many instances of broken ceasefires and insisted that any truce that lacks the presence of a muscular international force to enforce it is useless.

Without such a UN force, said Nur, “this will give the government legitimacy to kill people, to rape”.

The current talks, he said, are doing more harm than good, “The process that is going on is not a real peace. It is prolonging the suffering of our people and complicating the problem of Darfur.”

A solution to the crisis must come from within Sudan, he said, and cannot be imposed from the outside. “Leadership will not be created in Libya or by the international community. Leadership [should be recognised] by the people on the ground.”

Nur also defended his boycott, “I am not a criminal. I am not a saboteur of peace. Real peace will not be made in Libya and it will not be made by this process.”

Over the past five years, Darfur rebels have split into ever smaller groups with each claiming control over ever smaller fiefdoms.

As a result, the major rebel leaders such as Nur are not keen to engage in the peace process while factions compete for recognition and opportunism takes over the agenda of the talks.

Despite that, the rebels are nearly unanimous in their demand a ceasefire as a precondition to further talks.

“That’s all we have been talking about, ceasefire, ceasefire, ceasefire,” said Hashim Hamad, the political adviser for a faction of the SLA.

The rebels also want the talks to include discussions on land, power sharing and security in Darfur.

UN Special Envoy for Darfur, Jan Eliasson, and his AU counterpart, Salim Ahmed Salim, agree the Darfur rebels must present a united front if they expect find a political solution to the conflict.

“Talks could not restart without most of the key rebel factions on board,” Salim told IWPR, but none of the key leaders of the insurgency have indicated when or if they will return.

The failure of the Sirte talks also means that the planned UN force of 26,000 troops in Darfur could be seriously delayed.

Suleiman Jahmous, a respected Darfur rebel leader and the Humanitarian Coordinator for the SLA-Unity, said his group is committed to the peace process and urged others to join.

“It is better for the international community and the rebels to accept each other and to sit together and to unify themselves and to negotiate the matter of Darfur as one group,” Jahmous told IWPR. “We should not leave anyone out.”

The lack of unity has also led to needless violence as some factions see the presence of the AU forces as an aid to the Sudan government.

“Since the signing of the DPA (Darfur Peace Agreement), the Africa Union Peace Mission in Sudan (AMIS) soldiers become targets because the local militia groups associate them with the Darfur Peace [Agreement] signatories,” said Hashim Mloso, an aid worker with Save the Children in Darfur.

A faction of SLA-Unity, led by Abdallah Yahia, stormed an AU compound in Haskanita and killed ten and injuring scores of others, angering international observers.

Some progress has been made, however, toward unity.

The rebels appear to have forged a common front after talks in the southern Sudan town of Juba this month.

According to the resolutions of the meeting obtained by IWPR, the other rebel factions, or offshoots of JEM and the SLA, such as the Field Revolutionary Command, the Democratic Patriotic Front and the Sudanese Revolutionary Command, have joined forces under one leadership.

Jarelnabi Abdelkarim, one of the rebel SLM commanders in north Darfur, said efforts would be made to reach out to Nur and Ibrahim of JEM.

“We have set up a committee tasked with contacting the two movements (SLA and JEM) and if possible, to initiate coordination with them,” said Abdel Karim.

Jamous, of SLA-Unity, explained, “We are trying to get the Sudan Liberation Army back under one banner if possible. We are contacting field commanders across the region.”

He said fighting units previously loyal to other SLA faction leaders had joined the new unified group.

Most worrisome, however, was that delays in reaching a political solution to the crisis in Darfur could ignite what some observers have called a “new and dangerous phase” in the war due to the massive scale of the internal displacements in the region.

Despite the frustration at the latest round of talks, Salim believes that the desire to proceed was attained at Sirte.

Yet, Salim said there was no point resuming talks until most of the key rebel factions had agreed to take part, admitting that the boycotts had been a setback for the peace process.

“I don’t think we need to have a fixation on a particular date. What we need to do is to have a fixation on having workable negotiations, which can lead to an agreement,” said Salim. “But having said that, of course we also understand, this cannot be an endless process.”

Speaking from Kampala, Uganda, one rebel group led by Ahmed Abdel Shafie said the primary issue now is not attendance, but rather unity.

“Our main priority is to unite all the Darfur rebels groups now. The issue of attending peace talks will come later,” said factional spokesman Nouri Abdalla.

Mediators admitted that negotiations were unlikely to resume before next year.

“Substantial negotiations may have to be conducted next year,” said Sam Ibok, AU chief negotiator.

Although mediators would prefer factions to come face-to-face this year, Ibok said problems that led to last month’s breakdown in the talks had to be solved first.

A referendum due in 2011 on whether South Sudan should leave the rest of the country is seen as a major tuning-point in the country’s history – but some suggest that nationwide elections due two years earlier could prove even more important.

The leadership of the former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, which now runs the south, is meeting to decide its future policies.

Mainly animist and Christian South Sudan feels like a completely different country to the largely Muslim, Arab-speaking north.

Visitors need a separate visa for the two regions and the writ of the authorities in Khartoum counts for hardly anything south of the internal border.

In the southern capital, Juba, the most common mobile phone network is operated from Uganda, with a +256 code, not the +249 for Khartoum. Calls to Uganda are charged at a local rate, while those to Khartoum are international.

The northern Sudanese networks do not work very well in the south, which were cut off for during the 21-year war, which ended in 2005.

During the conflict, aid agencies ran their operations from Kenya and many southerners have more links to neighbouring countries than northern Sudan, so the Ugandan mobile set-up suits them very well.

While the north is subject to Islamic Sharia law, with the streets of the capital deserted after 2000 at night, alcohol and nightclubs are easily found in Juba, a sleepy provincial town which is experiencing a massive building boom in case it becomes an international capital in four years’ time.

Gaudy neon signs can be seen flashing in the giant mango trees which line the River Nile, while huge stacks of speakers blare out the latest rap and R ‘n’ B releases from Kenya and the United States.

Southern leader?

Under a 2005 peace deal, the SPLM is running South Sudan until the referendum and joins President Omar al-Bashir’s National Congress Party in a government of national unity.

It has been generally assumed that the plebiscite was bound to lead to independence but SPLM officials are not taking that for granted.

“If we win elections, and a southerner becomes national president, we would no longer have any reason to leave,” one senior SPLM official who did not want to be named told the BBC News website.

The same prospect is raised by several former SPLM fighters.

With just two years to go before the elections are due, there is little sign of much preparation.

But SPLM spokesman Samson Kwaje is confident that the elections will take place and says his movement is taking advantage of the peace to build up nationwide structures.

“We are busy trying to transform ourselves into a fully fledged political party. We are recruiting members nationwide,” he said.

‘Unpopular’

Preparations for the polls are behind schedule but work has begun on a national census, which would enable officials to divide the country into constituencies.

Sudan analyst Alex de Waal says the international community is making a serious error concentrating so much on the conflict in Darfur and ignoring the polls which could transform the country.

“This is the most crucial issue in Sudan,” he told the BBC News website.

Although the SPLM was vilified in government-controlled areas during the war, Mr de Waal says they would win a reasonable number of votes in the north, to bolster their southern heartlands, and so could win a nationwide majority.

But could a southerner really win national elections against the NCP, which has been in power since a 1989 coup?

“In a popular vote, the SPLM would defeat the NCP, but they are badly organised,” says Mr de Waal of the New-York based Social Science Research Council.

“The NCP is deeply unpopular.”

Nevertheless, Mr de Waal says that no single party can hope to win an election on its own.

He says the SPLM must forge an alliance with one of three groups:

* The NCP;
* The northern opposition, which it already has links to;
* The non-Arab groups in Darfur and the east – assuming it is possible to hold elections in Darfur.

Mr Kwaje says the SPLM has not yet decided which groups, if any, it will contest the elections with.

He said it would depend on the other groups’ manifestos and, of course, how capable they are of delivering votes.

On a possible alliance with the NCP, he says it depends on how the peace deal is implemented.

Ruling alliance

Earlier this year, southern leader Salva Kiir made an angry speech, accusing the NCP of not keeping its side of the bargain.

Some analysts say that renewed conflict is more likely than national elections.

But Mr Kwaje dismissed such fears and said relations between the SPLM and the NCP were improving.

Senior NCP official Ghazi Salahuddin told the BBC his party was “disposed to have an alliance with the SPLM”.

This would probably be a winning combination of the SPLM’s popularity and the NCP’s organisation but who would be their presidential candidate?

Charismatic former SPLM leader John Garang would have been a strong contender but he died just a few months after the peace deal was signed, to be replaced by the rather dour Salva Kiir.

If the SPLM is to achieve its dream of winning the presidency, it should find an alternative candidate, says Mr de Waal.

‘Attractive’

Khartoum street vendor Osman agrees that Garang would have made a stronger candidate but says he would still prefer Mr Kiir to Mr Bashir.

He says the racial and religious differences would not be a factor in his vote.

“We are all Sudanese – I trust Kiir,” he said as he struggled to sell a box load of digital watches.

Mr Salahuddin says he sees no reason why a southerner could not become national leader in future elections but “as of now, our only candidate is Bashir.”

He does admit, though that a southern leader could make unity “more attractive”.

Mr Kwaje says the peace deal explicitly forbids any party campaigning to remove Sharia law in northern Sudan but does not rule out adding that to the SPLM manifesto in future – if the south remains part of Sudan.

He insists, though, that even if a southerner does become national president, the referendum would still be held.

“We will still give the people the chance to decide.”

November 27, 2007 (UNITED NATIONS) —

The Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Marie Guehenno, briefed the UN Security Council (UNSC) today in an open session at the insistence of the US and UK envoys at the council.

Guehenno said that a list of troop contributing countries was put together with the African Union and sent to Sudan early October. He argued that the list was the most optimal in terms of “African character” per Sudan’s request and technical capabilities.

The UN official said that his office has not received a direct response from Khartoum but referred to press reports and statements by Sudanese officials rejecting non-African components of the force.

Last week the Sudanese president, Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, said he would not accept non-African troops apart from Chinese and Pakistani technical units already committed.

But the peacekeeping chief stressed that “there is no alternative for the inclusion of non-African units”. He said that three units have been singled out by Sudanese officials to be excluded from the force, an infantry battalion from Thailand, a Special Forces unit from Nepal and an engineering unit from the Nordic countries.

Guehenno outlined to the UN Security Council why each of these units were selected by peacekeeping operations in terms of deployment speed and the mission critical needs.

UN Security Council resolution 1769 establishing UN-AU hybrid force provided for a transition from the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) to the force known as UNAMID by December 31st.

However Guehenno said that the UN may not be able to meet the deadline set by resolution 1769 as a result of Sudan’s objections to the composition of the force.

“There was cause for concern with regard to public remarks made by Sudanese Government officials who had called into question the African Union-United Nations approach in finalizing force composition” he said.

He further said that Sudan has not given its authorization for the deployment of six helicopters to El- Fasher and UNAMID had not been given permission to fly at night either.

“The mandate to protect civilians does not end at sunset” he said.

The peacekeeping chief also said that UNAMID had not received allocated land in El-Geneina and Zalingei regions in Darfur. The Sudanese government also impounded UNAMID communications equipment for weeks according to him.

“If the government does not give us the land we need, we will have to pull back some units” he warned.

Sudan also wants the Status of Forces Agreement with the AU-UN force to include provisions on communications and the movement of troops and personnel, “which in our experience would make it impossible for the mission to operate,” Guehenno said.

One proposal would allow the government to “temporarily disable the communications network” in case of security operations to protect the country’s sovereignty. The other would require the AU-UN force to provide “advance notification to the government for all staff, troop and asset movements,” he said.

Guehenno also warned Khartoum from reneging on its agreement that the peacekeeping force would wear the blue UN helmets with an AU patch.

On Friday Bashir said the incoming peacekeepers would have to be led by an African wearing an African Union helmet.

“We have been making preparations for peacekeeping troops to wear blue berets. The immunities associated with wearing the blue helmets and the UN insignia which are simply non-negotiable to troop contributing countries” Guehenno added.

Sudan’s U.N. Ambassador AbdelMahmood Abdelhaleem told the Security Council that discussions on the composition of UNAMID should take place in three-way talks between Sudan, the United Nations and the AU, and not in the council.

Abdelhaleem accused UN peacekeeping department of using Sudan as scapegoat “for their failures”.

“You can achieve a lot through dialogue and engagement rather than threats,” Mohamed said. “Things should be done through consultations, through transparency, through dialogue. We are open for that.” he added.

But the UN peacekeeping chief suggested that the time for endless consultations with Sudan on the force is over.

“Extensive and detailed technical explanations has been provided repeatedly including at a high level to the government of Sudan. The remaining and fundamental differences cannot be attributed to lack of consultations” he said.

The Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations ended his briefing with a stern warning to UN Security Council.

“If discussions failed to clear the path to the deployment of an effective force, the international community would be confronted with hard choices. Should one move ahead with the deployment of a force that would not make a difference or be able to defend itself, that carried the risk of humiliation of the Council and the United Nations” he warned.

The UK envoy at the UN Security Council, John S