The rebels price for a real peace in Darfur

Six months after the African Union and its international partners declared that the time for making peace was up, and rushed through the Darfur Peace Agreement, there is finally acknowledgement that there can be no peace in Darfur while the only signatories are the Sudan government and a single rebel faction. Senegal and Egypt have both offered to host new talks. But at the time of going to press it seems likely that the initiative will pass to Eritrea — at the request of Khartoum — and that international involvement will be much reduced.

In advance of the new talks, which Eritrea hopes to host in Asmara in December, senior figures from the rebel factions that refused to sign the Abuja agreement are converging on Darfur to win the support of field commanders for a negotiating position on which they have already reportedly agreed. Representing the mainstream SLA is Ahmad Abdul Shafi, a member of the Fur tribe who replaced the historic Chairman of the SLA, Abdul Wahid Mohamed al Nur, after a disorganized and erratic performance by Abdul Wahid in Abuja. Representing the National Redemption Front, a new alliance of anti-DPA factions, is Sharif Harir, a respected Zaghawa anthropologist from an older generation of activists.

Key to their success will be the faction known variously as G-19 and SLA-Unity, which has inflicted a number of crushing defeats on the government in recent fighting in North Darfur. Khartoum expelled the UN Special Representative to Sudan, Jan Pronk, after he reported these defeats in his weblog. Pronk claimed that army morale was low, generals had been sacked and soldiers were refusing to fight.

Sources in Asmara say the position paper for the new talks has already been approved by Abdul Shafi and the National Redemption Front. Abdul Wahid, who still enjoys popular support in Darfur, withheld his approval at the last minute. He reportedly said that while he agrees to Eritrean mediation he wants the talks to be held in Senegal.

Khartoum has been making overtures to the political leaders of the non-signatories ever since the Abuja talks adjourned, its sights firmly set on forging an alliance in Darfur that will enable it to win national elections in 2009. Darfurians make up approximately a quarter of the electorate of northern Sudan and are a key to the ruling Congress Party maintaining itself in power during a democratic transition.

Suleiman Jamous, longtime humanitarian coordinator of the SLA, was named head of the leadership committee of SLA-Unity in May. Soon after, Minawi arrested him and he was only released after energetic intervention by Pronk. He was taken to Kadugli, in neighbouring Kordofan, and has not been permitted to return to Darfur. Jamous (pictured above) told Parliamentary Brief that SLA-Unity would continue fighting unless their demands were met. These include:

• The re-establishment of a single Darfur region, as there is a single South Sudan region. The rebels argue that the magnitude of the destruction in Darfur requires a single administrative unit to repair the damage done, deliver public services and negotiate Darfur’s rights with the federal government.

• International guarantees for, and supervision of, the return of the displaced to their villages. The rebels say the AU is weak in terms of weapons and mandate, and many of its officers have been corrupted by Khartoum.

• More compensation money, and provision for ‘individual’ compensation. Khartoum has made a first payment of $30 million into the Compensation Fund set up by the DPA. This is a first payment for rapid disbursement — not a ceiling. It is unclear why the rebels claim the DPA excludes individual compensation. Fourteen paragraphs provide for this — including interim compensation without a full hearing (para. 210).

• Improved power-sharing at national level. The power-sharing provisions of the DPA were significantly weakened — to what many believe is an unacceptably low level — by the coordinator of the Power-Sharing Commission in Abuja, Berhanu Dinka. Nevertheless, demands for far greater representation in the federal parliament rest on a misreading of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the 20-year conflict in the South and regulates power-sharing at the national level, and cannot be met without amending the CPA.

• Improved power-sharing at regional level. The rebels are seeking a majority in a regional parliament. The core problem here is the CPA formula which gives less than parity to rebels in two other northern areas — the Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile.

• Finally, and critically, better guarantees for Janjaweed disarmament, which the DPA leaves in government hands. Discussions about disarmament at Abuja were cut short when mediators insisted on a May deadline, and the provisions are deeply flawed. Some internationals believe the emphasis on Janjaweed disarmament is a distraction since most Janjaweed have already been incorporated into the Sudan Armed Forces. They argue for incorporating them all into the SAF, and then downsizing.

Predictably, the agreement to hold new talks has been quickly followed by a government offensive in North Darfur, centred on the SLA-Unity heartland around the village of Bir Maza. Senior AU officials believe new attacks in South and West Darfur — as vicious as anything Darfur has seen since the rebellion began in 2003 — are designed to prevent Chad and the Darfur-Bahr el Ghazal border area being used as bases for a possible UN force.

The offensive makes a mockery of the ‘High Level Consultation on the Situation in Darfur’ that was held at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa on 16 November, co-chaired by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and AU Chairman Denis Sassou Nguesso. Although acclaimed by some as a diplomatic breakthrough which created a ‘hybrid’ AU-UN protection force, the talks have only deepened the confusion that is the most striking feature of efforts to bring the rapidly deteriorating situation in Darfur under control. The document that emerged from the talks did not specify a mandate for the putative force. It left undecided the critical questions of troop size and command structure and established no timeframe for deployment. The government on one hand, and the AU and UN on the other, do not agree on what was agreed on in Addis.

With the AU mandate in Darfur ending on 31 December, there is no time to be lost. For the moment, there is no peace for international peacekeeping troops to keep — whatever the colour of their hats. Seeking that peace, through a new ceasefire and a new political process, must now be the priority. The international community must stop barking, and begin to bite.

 Julie Flint is the author, with Alex de Waal, of 'Darfur - A Short History of a Long War', published by Zed Books.