Date: Fri Nov 21 15:24:59 2014
Sudanese natterings
Three separate rounds of peace talks on Sudan and South Sudan are now taking
place in Addis Ababa but with no immediate results, writes Gamal Nkrumah
Friday,21 November, 2014
How does one begin a column on Sudan? First, all roads lead to Addis Ababa,
the Ethiopian capital. At the moment there are three rounds of talks
concurrently taking place in Addis Ababa. Two of these talks concern Sudan,
and a third deals with South Sudan. On Monday, one of the rounds of talks
was indefinitely postponed. The two others are stalled.
The African Union High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP), led by former
South African president Thabo Mbeki, has consistently pushed for a draft
framework agreement to end the ongoing fighting between the Sudanese
government and the opposition Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North
(SPLM-N), which holds sway in two Sudanese provinces, South Kordofan and
Blue Nile. Non-Arab ethnic groups predominate in these provinces.
Sandwiched between South Sudan and Ethiopia, Blue Nile is peopled by those
who have resisted the Arabisation policies and the Islamising Sudanese
society project of Sudanese president Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, resulting in a
bitter 20-year conflict that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands and
rendered thousands more homeless. It has emerged as the front line in the
Sudanese government's Islamist state-building project.
In September 2011 fighting erupted in and around Al-Damazin, the provincial
capital of Blue Nile. Sudanese government forces bombarded SPLM-N
strongholds in the entire Blue Nile state, and thousands subsequently fled
into Upper Nile, South Sudan, to settle in inhospitable locations such as
the Jamam refugee camp, now home to some 40,000 desperate refugees.
All in all, there are an estimated 120,000 Blue Nile refugees in Upper Nile,
and humanitarian agencies suspect that ethnic cleansing is underway. If the
response to this situation is too slow, Africa and the international
community may lose the initiative and the credibility that is sorely needed
to end the war and the refugee crises it has engendered.
Although less attention is now being paid to the plight of the Blue Nile
refugees, the Al-Bashir regime's atrocities are escalating in the province
on the pretext that the population is sympathetic to the SPLM-N. Meanwhile,
malnourishment and unhygienic living conditions, including the lack of
access to potable water, are taking their toll on the lives of the hapless
refugees.
In the wake of the 2011 Al-Damazin massacres by Sudanese government forces
and the heroic resistance of the indigenous people led by Malik Agar, then
governor of Blue Nile and now commander of the SPLM-N, Al-Bashir summarily
dismissed Agar and replaced him with general Yahia Mohammed Kheir,
affiliated with Al-Bashir's ruling National Congress Party (NCP).
The strategically located province is home to the Roseires Dam, the main
source of hydroelectric power in Sudan until the completion of the Merowe
Dam in 2010. It is against this backdrop that the Addis Ababa talks between
the Sudanese government and the SPLM-N are now being adjourned. The
government has not learned the lessons of the Al-Damazin debacle, and it has
been taking pains to build a broad coalition against the SPLM-N even though
the bulk of the population has never wavered in their support for it.
The African Union mediation proposal is bound to fall on deaf ears unless
the protagonists are able to balance vision with pragmatism. The mediation
has already delayed a decisive meeting between the Sudanese government and
the SPLM-N for 24 hours in order to conduct further consultations. The
SPLM-N is allied to the opposition Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF) and is
in no mood to negotiate with an intransigent Al-Bashir.
The SPLM-N does not duck a fight, and nor does the SRF and allied Darfur
armed opposition groups. The SRF groups have established a coordination
committee chaired by Darfur armed opposition leader Minni Minnawi to
supervise the positions of the negotiating teams in Addis Ababa. And the
peace plan of the African Union Peace and Security Council is coordinating
concurrently with armed opposition groups in Darfur for scheduled talks with
the Sudanese government.
As if to confuse the situation further, the South Sudanese are engaged in
possibly equally futile negotiations orchestrated in parallel with the
power-sharing proposals and peace talks taking place in Addis Ababa. The
Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has brought together the
South Sudanese protagonists to create a "national unity government" in South
Sudan, but already the peace talks sound hollow to most South Sudanese.
What is more certain is that South Sudan's neighbours are making Herculean
efforts to end the fighting in the war-torn country. The South Sudan
Cessation of Hostilities Workshop in Addis Ababa is supposed to educate
military officers on how to monitor and uphold the implementation of the
ceasefire agreement. The week-long workshop, however, has no chance of
success unless the battle-hardened and poverty-stricken South Sudanese
protagonists manage to end the country's endless wars.
Former South Sudanese vice-president Riek Machar, now leading the uprising
against the government of South Sudan's president Salva Kiir, is to hold
peace talks in Ethiopia's Gambela region, inhabited mainly by Nilotic ethnic
groups related to those in South Sudan. Machar is to chair the Gambela talks
a few days after he finishes with the workshop in Addis Ababa. Kiir, too, is
under intense pressure to show himself as a more substantial politician than
he currently looks.
The ongoing fighting is further aggravating the security and deplorable
humanitarian crisis in South Sudan. The United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees, Antonio Gutierres, has conceded that the refugee situation in
South Sudan is fast deteriorating. UN agencies, the African Union, IGAD and
neighbouring countries are trying their best to help end the two Sudans'
ongoing wars, but with what success it is still far too early to say.
Sudanese natterings
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