The Darfur peace process: Where to now?

Thursday 29 May, 13:00-14:30
ODI 111 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7JD

Following the troubled Darfur Peace Agreement in 2006, the UN-African Union envoys to Darfur have been working to reinvigorate the peace process. The challenges facing this process were highlighted in November 2007 when a boycott by numerous rebel factions forced the abandonment of talks in Libya after only two days. With deep divisions amongst the rebels, fierce fighting in western Darfur and the prospect of a 'proxy war' between Chad and Sudan, some commentators are asking 'where to now?' for the Darfur mediation.

This seminar will bring together experts on the region, including diplomats directly involved in the process, to give their thoughts on the way forward for the Darfur mediation.

The Darfur peace process: Where to now?

The meeting was a follow up on a previous event on the Darfur peace process held in late 2007 and presented an opportunity to reflect on progress made since then and discuss the continuing challenges ahead.

This meeting was conducted under Chatham House rules and what follows is a summary of key points.

Introduction

The meeting initiated with deep concern at the recent and unprecedented violence witnessed in Abyei and wider fragility in the Three Areas that threaten the sustainability of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between North and South Sudan. There is concern that the current focus on the crisis in Darfur continues to divert attention from the CPA despite the fact that the country’s coherence as a nation largely depends on its implementation as does a sustainable peace in Darfur.

The peace process

An AU/UN mediation team, with a focus on the Darfur opposition, has been supporting the peace process since 2006. It has carried out extensive consultations with regional countries, the government of Sudan, international actors and the rebel movements in Darfur. There have been three major events in the peace process: a) a pre-negotiation meeting in Arusha that created a negotiating platform and placed a date for negotiations (albeit with many conditions); b) In October 2007 a round of negotiations was organised in Sirte (Libya) and although their was a strong turnout by the international community and the Sudanese government’s negotiating team there was no substantive presence from the rebel movements; and c) a series of meetings were held in Juba, convened by SPLM, that helped build greater coherence and solve the rifts between the rebel movements. Five groups emerged from the process.

The mediation team has recognised that the process was rushed after Arusha and since then a more incremental approach has been adopted that seeks to build confidence between the parties. Humanitarian issues are also being put on the table first as it is a subject that can better generate consensus for discussion.

There are three main obstacles to progress with the mediation process. Firstly, there is the issue of legitimacy as the five groups do not all recognise each other making it almost impossible to get them to sit around a table for negotiations. Secondly, within those groups there are different demands and positions with some groups asking for security as a precondition for talks; but achieving security will surely have to come out of negotiations. Lastly, there are factors that are outside of the mediation team’s control that have an affect on progress in the peace process. These largely stem from the unstable region such events in Chad that affect Darfuri rebel movements.

Despite these obstacles, a window of opportunity was identified in the fact that the government and some rebel groups are prepared to accept a negotiated settlement to the crisis. Although all groups need to be involved for a comprehensive solution, current willingness to negotiate by some groups means that talks can proceed and potentially create momentum towards a comprehensive solution.

The Sudan/Chad proxy war

In 2005 there was a risk of a Sudan/Chad proxy war and a series of event has made this possibility a reality. In order to understand the nature of this war, it is essential to understand the cross-border ethnic affinities between the two countries and the politics involved.

Some of the allegiances are fluid, with groups sometimes changing sides and the government supporting groups without strong ethnic affinities. For example, SLA-U includes Bideyat members related to Idriss Déby, but Chad has been providing more support to JEM.

Although Sudan has been backing rebels in Chad, they are not a Sudanese problem but rather stem from the incapacity of professional rebel leaders to give up their arms, the continuing use of rebel movements by Chadian politicians to gain power and the failure of DDR programmes. Although Chadian rebels are more dependent on Sudan than their Sudanese counterparts on Chad they should not be seen as stooges as they have their own agendas.

Sudanese support to Chadian rebels have given them a bad image, however, they are popular mainly because the majority of Chadians support regime change. Finding a sustainable solution to Darfur will need to include the Chadian dimension.

The recent attack by JEM near the capital Khartoum should not be simply seen as part of this proxy war. Relations between Idriss Deby and JEM have been poor since February and therefore there is a need to understand the rebel group’s individual motives and its desire to take the war outside of Darfur into the heart of Sudan in order to affect public opinion.

International engagement

The international community has sought to actively engage in Darfur. In late 2006 an agreement was reached to replace AMIS with a joint AU/UN force, to work in parallel with the AU/UN Envoys for the political process. The Envoys have been unable to fulfil their mission, mainly because of the situation's intractability and unrealistic expectations: therefore some of the criticism they have faced is slightly unfair. There is a need to move away from trying to do the impossible.

The UK/French summit last July stressed international engagement on four dimensions to the Darfur crisis. This includes security and humanitarian access, political, economic and regional dimensions, with the latter including events across the border in Chad, but also the CPA between the North and the South. Engagement on the first two of these issues has had limited progress to date: UNIMID has made a difference, but cannot itself resolve the conflict. More effort is needed to integrate handling of the economic and regional dimensions, particularly after the JEM attack on Omdurman and the crisis over Abyei.

On the political process itself, there is a need to re-energise work without being too prescriptive and impatient; to engage civil society which so far has been inadequate; and to build security from the ground up, to complement political-level agreements to ensure they can be implemented on the ground. The UK offer of further action to support the UN/AU-led process remains on the table for the right moment, including the possibility of hosting talks if that would be useful.

The international community should not let Darfur distract from other important issues such as CPA, as peace in Darfur largely depends on the sustainability of the wider peace process across Sudan."

Discussion

In the discussion questions were raised around the legitimacy of the government. Although the legitimacy of the rebel leaders was discussed some felt that the government of Sudan is not an honest broker and that there current willingness to negotiate may present a strategic rather than honest shift in policy. However, the legitimacy of the rebel movements was seen as a more important barrier to the peace process as its success depends on their ability to recognise the existence of the other groups and be willing to negotiate with them. This is not an issue with the government, which is a unitary bloc, albeit with some problems with the south, and is ready to talk in order to increase stability in the face of forthcoming elections. The government also recognises the limits of a military solution and therefore there is some opportunity to re-energise the peace talks. Ultimately it was argued the only way to test legitimacy and real intentions is by seeing how honest different parties are in practice. If parties are not willing to engage there is a need to isolate them politically and try to give the process momentum and hope this will encourage other groups to change their stance.

Other points were raised with regards to the peace talks and whether they are tackling the right issues. The Abuja agreement is largely seen as an attempt by the international community to get an agreement as quickly as possible without paying too much attention to the substance. They are not focusing on the cause of the crisis and are repeating the failure of the AU by depending on UNAMID, whose mandate is not clear, staff are not well trained and they do not have sufficient authority on the ground. It was felt that the international community needs to put pressure on the government to enforce UN resolutions. Furthermore, many felt the peace process needs further consultation with civil society and the beneficiaries on the ground in order to be more inclusive and accountable. However, caution was mentioned on the involvement of civil society, particularly if stemming from lack of progress with rebel movements. Civil society can feed into the process but ultimately cannot substitute it.

Others recognised the importance of the CPA for the stability of Sudan, however, it was also mentioned that the situation in Darfur is not covered in the CPA and therefore a separate resolution needs to be found and the international community needs to focus on both.

In discussing the regional dimensions, the extent of Libya’s engagement was raised, a country that has influenced events in Darfur in the 1980s and 1990s but is currently staying at the margins. However, it was felt that there is also a danger of being to inclusive by getting all regional governments involved. There is need to identify which regional powers have real leverage on the situation in Darfur and whilst Libya may have been influential, they have changed their role in recent years in trying to be an African peacemaker.

The competence of the Sudanese army was raised in the face of the recent JEM attack near Khartoum. Given that the current government is a military regime, it was thought that these events may have a negative impact on the government and their ability to govern.