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Sudan: Not More Diplomacy but Popular National StrugglesAuthor(s): John YoungSource: Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 34, No. 111, Debates on the Left inSouthern Africa (Mar., 2007), pp. 165-168Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20406370 .

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Debates: Sudan: Not More Diplomacy But Popular National Struggles 165

suggestions from the public regarding how to move the peace forward, but to simply support the agenda he brought with him. The Inter

governmental Authority on Drought and

Development (IGADD) was formed in 1986 with a very narrow mandate around the issues of

drought and desertification. Since then, and

especially in the 1990s, IGADD became a vehicle for regional security and political dialogue.

15.The official Islamic Council of Ethiopia was instructed by the authorities to issue a declaration in support of the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia.

Contacts in the Council told the author that the government literally wrote the declaration which the Council was asked to issue under thinly veiled threats. This method of getting consent is

part of the standard operating procedure of the

TPLF regime. The author witnessed this type of

operation first hand when he was a Fulbright researcher in the country in 1999.

Sudan: Not More Diplomacy But Popular National Struggles John Young

Foreign diplomats have given Sudan the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 9 January 2005 (CPA), an agreement that is not comprehensive, sanctions major ity power to an Islamist minority gov ernment in Khartoum, divides and weakens the opposition, and is cur rently in a state of crisis. The diplomats then went on to try their hand in Darfur, giving the country another agreement - the Darfur Peace Agreement of 5 May 2006 (DPA) - that is claimed to be comprehensive but is nothing of the sort, again strengthens and legitimises the regime in Khartoum, weakens the oppo sition, and was in a state of collapse

within days of it being signed. Follow ing the script laid down by the CPA, Eritrean diplomats oversaw a peace agreement between the government and the Eastern Front (the Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement of 14 October 2006)

that suffers the same flaws. Against this record of failure can anyone have faith in the foreign diplomats? The only hope for a peaceful, democratic, just and united Sudan lies in the popular strug gles of the Sudanese and to make clear to the diplomats and their allies that the best contribution they can make to Su dan is to pack their bags and leave.

CPA: The Road to Disaster

On the eve of the Navaisha peace proc ess that produced the CPA, the National Congress Party (NCP) government faced a major insurgency in southern Sudan, a minor insurgency in the east, revolts in Abyei, Nuba Mountains, and South Blue Nile, the opposition of the Umma and Democratic Unionist Parties which col lectively won 75% of the vote in the last fair election of 1986, and growing chaos in Darfur that foretold that area's subse quent revolt. Knowing that it probably faced imminent defeat, the NCP sought to divide the opposition through the establishment of a series of peace proc esses. And in these efforts it has had the consistent support of the international community. The starting point was the south where the regional Inter-Govern mental Authority on Development (IGAD) began a peace process in the early 1990s, but which was taken over by the US and Britain. The American and British diplomats endorsed the ar gument of the NCP that Sudan was afflicted by a north-south conflict and that it was too complicated to bring other disaffected groups into the proc ess. As a result, they supported the NCP in its desire to keep the northern opposi tion led by the National Democratic

Alliance (NDA) out of the process and ensure that the ruling party confronted a weaker opposition than it otherwise would.

This was not the only problem of the CPA: first, against enormous evidence of war spreading throughout the country, it was based on the assumption that the

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166 Review of African Political Economy

only significant conflict in Sudan was that between the north and south; sec ond, by taking the Sudan People's Lib eration Movement/Army (SPLM/A) out of the armed struggle and crucially out of the NDA, it signalled the demise of that organisation; third, by giving the

NCP 52% of the power in the national government it ensured that any subse quent peace agreements could not alter its dominance in Khartoum and mo nopoly position over the security forces; fourth, by this inequitable division of power it encouraged other revolts in the country by groups fearful that their communities would be left out of the peace process, and last, the agreement ensured that subsequent peace proc esses could only address local issues since the NCP alone was acknowledged as the legitimate authority to represent national interests. There was also one other crucial flaw in the agreement that the Western diplomats did not consider, namely that the NCP had no intention of abiding by the CPA, and in particular its provision for a referendum on self determination that would not only bring about the separation of the south, but equally importantly, would take all of the oil revenues out of the hands of the ruling party. As a result, there has been a consistent pattern of NCP cheating on the CPA from its inception.

Of course, rhetoric aside, the US and Britain could not be expected to lead a peace process that seriously undermined a regime in Khartoum with which they were working very closely in the so called 'war on terror'. Indeed, the Ameri cans were so appreciative of Sudanese efforts that they brought Major-General Salah Gosh, head of the National Secu rity Agency and a major figure in the abuse of human rights in the country, to

Washington to thank him personally. Later when his background became bet ter known he was refused admittance to the US for medical treatment, but the British stepped in and allowed him to go

to London. Cooperation between the intelligence services of the three coun tries, however, has continued unabated.

DPA: Deepening the Tragedy

While discontent in Darfur can be dated from at least the 1984 famine, the emer gence of an effective armed opposition in 2003 was precipitated by the Naivasha peace process which made clear that power was being carved up at the expense of the rest of the country. Not able to contain the rebels the NCP enlisted the support of the Arab jingaweed and that produced a humani tarian crisis that again brought the diplomats into the fray. And signifi cantly their engagement followed the same pattern as that in the south. In the south the US and Britain favoured IGAD as a regional organisation to lead the peace process, but when it could not produce the kind of process desired they took over. In the case of Darfur, the peace process was initially led by the African Union, but again American and British diplomats took over. The starting point of peace negotiations in Darfur was to ensure that the CPA was not challenged, and crucially that meant protecting the existing division of power between the NCP and SPLM/A. It also meant that the Darfurian rebels could only negoti ate regional issues. Just as was the case with the SPLM/A in the south, Western diplomats aided and abetted the policy of the NCP to divide the opposition, ensured that Sudan's conflicts were defined in regional terms and that the ruling party alone could represent the national interest, and that its majority position and dominance of the state would not be challenged. With enor mous pressure from Western diplomats and complimentary bribes from the NCP (but providing for no real change in the balance of power in Khartoum), the Mini Minawi faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) was induced to sign the DPA.

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Debates: Sudan: Not More Diplomacy But Popular National Struggles 167

But the ink was barely dry on the peace agreement before many of Mini's com manders deserted to the opposition, fighting increased, and the humanitar ian crisis in Darfur intensified. And as

was the case in the south, the NCP has

shown little interest in abiding by the agreement, and in particular its provi sion to disarm the janjaweed. Despite the virtual collapse of the agreement and growing evidence that most of the Darfurians in the IDP camps are strongly opposed to the agreement, Western dip lomats have followed the NCP in argu ing that there cannot be another agreement, that only marginal changes to the existing agreement can be consid ered, and together they have directed their energies to bring the other Darfurian rebel groups into the peace process.

Eastern Sudan: the Pattern Continues While the NCP and the ruling Popular Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) of Eritrea agreed on keeping diplomats from the US, Britain, IGAD, the AU, and the UN, out of the eastern peace process, the final peace agreement follows the script laid down by the CPA. Indeed, having gained the strong endorsement of the 'international community' (which largely means the US, Britain, and to a lesser extent, the EU), for a division of power that was highly favourable to the NCP in the CPA, and having those provisions further endorsed in the DPA, the ruling party could not be expected to enter any peace process that would challenge that division. And although strong critics of the CPA, the Eritreans appreciated that they could only be accepted as peace-makers by the NCP if they did not challenge the provisions of the CPA. But Asmara was also accepted as a mediator by Khartoum because it controlled the Eastern Front and it was understood that no agreement could be reached without Eritrean endorsement.

The peace agreement in the east gives the Eastern Front a handful of parlia

mentary seats in an ineffectual national assembly, 35% representation in the national army in the east, and marginal representation in the eastern states, thus ensuring NCP unchallenged dominance of the national government, local assem blies, and the security services. The core of the agreement, however, is 'jobs for the boys', that is, the provision of pa tronage positions, both now and under the auspices of a US$600 million devel opment fund that is to be established. The SPLM/A and the international com munity have heralded the agreement as a great advance in the peace process. The Eritreans are not so naive; for them the peace agreement was a means to win international endorsement of a regime that is increasingly being seen as a pariah, position themselves to lead the much more important next round in the Darfur peace process, and lastly, end encirclement by the Sana'a Pact coun tries of Yemen, Ethiopia, and Sudan, and begin to encircle Ethiopia.

The Way Forward

Not only have the diplomats produced a

failed peace process in Dafur, a south ern peace process in crisis, and a third in the east which does not begin to address the problems of marginalisation for

which easterners went to war, but their efforts are likely to lead to more wars and ultimately to the dismemberment of the country. The most fundamental mis take of the diplomats was to believe that Sudan's conflicts were of a regional character instead of being a product of a failed state. As a result, the resolution of Sudan's problems did not lie in the country's many peripheries, but in the centre. The diplomats then set about establishing peace processes in the south, west, and east. And even if these conflicts could be resolved on a sustain able basis (and they cannot) they would only encourage further revolts elsewhere in the country by groups fearful of losing

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168 Review of African Political Economy

out in the internationally sanctioned division of power. Moreover, with the NCP holding a bare majority (52%) in Khartoum, to give up anything would be to effectively commit suicide and have some of its leading figures dragged before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. As a result, with the signing of the CPA there is no room for any group from the periphery to negoti ate a position of any significance in the national government. Diplomacy has thus come to a dead end. Further efforts by the international diplomats will only have the effect of encouraging war and spreading the humanitarian crises.

Moreover, each peace agreement inten sifies the state crisis and brings the dismemberment of the country a step closer. The international community may not want to see Sudan disintegrate, but by only endorsing regional based peace processes, discouraging the develop ment of a united opposition, not permit ting dissidents in the peripheries to address national concerns during nego tiations, and accepting that a regime that came to power through a coup should alone speak on behalf of the nation, they are bringing about the destruction of the country.

For Sudanese of all political persua sions concerned about the welfare of their country, the way forward is clear if not easily achieved: end international engagement in the country, take back the country, and send the diplomats pack ing. For those in the international com

munity who genuinely want to show solidarity with the struggling people of Sudan, the lessons are the same. Their diplomats have misunderstood Sudan, placed their national security interests before concerns for the Sudanese people and as a result have heightened the humanitarian crisis, intensified the con flicts, and brought the disintegration of the country a large step closer. The well known southern politician, Bona Malwal, once said in utter frustration

that the only hope for Sudan would be if all the country's politicians were placed on a boat that was taken out to the middle of the Red Sea and sunk. (He graciously volunteered to be a passen ger.) I would suggest an additional boat to be sunk: one carrying all the interna tional diplomats. The only hope for a peaceful, just, democratic, and united Sudan lies with the struggles of the Sudanese people. That prospect may seem far off, but it offers more hope and is more realistic than the misplaced efforts of the international diplomats and their never-ending failed peace proc esses.

John Young, e-mail: johnr-young@ hotmail.com

Collier on War & Peace in Africa: Statistics in Command Peter Lawrence

The UK Royal Economic Society sup ports an annual public lecture which in 2006 was given by Professor Paul Col lier, the first and current director of the Centre for the Study of African Econo mies, formerly director of research under chief economist Joe Stiglitz at the World Bank, and senior adviser to the Blair Commission on Africa. Collier is now an authoritative voice on African economic development and has written a popular book due out this year on what can be done about 'failing poor countries' (Col lier, 2007). This contribution to the de bate first gives an account of the lecture and then raises some critical questions about Collier's methodology and conclu sions.

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