Brains Like a Shoe

Amanda Taub at Wrongrights has published a three-part series of investigative blogging examining the use of quotes attributed to a Darfuri spokesperson in the Internally Displaced Camps, known as Abu Sharati.   She explores whether Abu Sharati speaks for all displaced Darfuris, as stated in a number of articles, or espouses the views of only one particular Darfuri rebel faction.  After talking with journalists from The New York Times, The Associated Press, and Reuters who quoted Abu Sharati in their stories on Darfur, she writes:

After weeks of research, I have been unable to find any information that makes me think Abu Sharati, supposedly the “representative” of Darfuri refugees and IDPs, exists -except to the extent that someone, who possesses neither that name nor that position, has been making statements to the press. And that whoever that person is, he is apparently awfully fond of the rebel leader Abdel Wahid Al-Nur.

I cannot think of any way to interpret the information I have been given that would allow me to conclude that no journalist has either (a) lied to me, (b) failed to follow the professional ethics that a journalist should, or (c) been duped by a fake “refugee representative” when any minor amount of digging or critical thought would have alerted them that there was more to the story. Frankly, the Occam’s Razor explanation here really seems like it’s (d): all of the above.

The trail that leads her to this conclusion is definitely worth a read, as are her conclusions for why this misreporting matters.  She believes first that “Abu Sharati’s” claiming to represent all Darfuris deprives other IDPs of their ability to tell their own stories and, furthermore, that “presenting a political argument in the guise of a humanitarian sentiment is disingenuous at best, and dangerous at worst.”  With 2.7 million Dafuris scattered over numerous camps in Darfur, it seems highly unlikely that they are organized and represented by one voice with one message.

Finally, she notes the implications for the Darfur activist movement:

Thirdly, it matters that the media quoted “Sharati” misleadingly, because it allows any of us who trusted those stories to be, well, misled. The Save Darfur movement is massive, and has motivated a huge number of grass-roots activists to support the cause, many of whom have never been to Darfur and rely on the media for information about the humanitarian situation there. They are ordinary people, (except when they are Mia Farrow or Nat Hentoff), with regular jobs and lives, and they don’t have access to firsthand experience to guide them. So when the mainstream media quotes Sharati, they trust that he is who the articles say he is. That lends power not only to the views expressed in mainstream publications, but also to the things that he says in less reputable publications. So, if it’s not true that he can reasonably speak for the displaced, then the activists who listen to him have been duped, and that sucks for them. And if it turns out that the thing they’ve been duped into doing is supporting one particular dude’s particular political ambitions because those views are presented as a neutral humanitarian perspective, then I think that sucks even more.

Overall, I think Taub accurately summarizes the dangers posed to the advocacy community’s understanding of Darfuri politics.  At the end of August, I did quote Abu Sharati in one of my blog postings from a telephone interview “he” gave to The Sudan Tribune in which “he” expressed concerns about the “protection of civilians and evacuation of new settlers who occupy IDP lands.” These complaints matched up with a number of other reports we have received from Darfur and Darfuris.

“Abu Sharati’s” strong denunciations though of U.S. Special Envoy Gration’s visit to the IDP camps in early September motivated me to look into other statements allegedly made by him.  I found, like Taub, that Abu Sharati had a consistent record of restating the talking points of Darfuri rebel leader Abdel Wahid al-Nur.  I shared this information with my colleagues and when such criticism of the Gration was brought up the same week on a Save Darfur activist conference call, a colleague of mine noted that activists should not put too much stock in the quotes from Abu Sharati because there were strong suspicions that he was speaking mostly for one faction of the Darfuri rebels.

Taub should be commended for trying to ensure accuracy about the reporting on the harsh, no-exaggeration-needed situation and concerns of the 2.7 million Darfuris living in IDP camps.

Istanbul: site of the IMF/World Bank meetings

The Sudanese government’s delegation, led by Dr. Awad Ahmed Al-Jaz, the finance minister and a senior National Congress Party (NCP) leader, is here in Istanbul for theWorld Bank/International Monetary Fund (IMF) annual meetings.  News reports from last week indicated that securing an internationally-brokered debt-relief package would be at the top of the delegation’s agenda.   The dire straits of the Sudanese economy motivate this new diplomatic push.

In none of the meetings thus far that I have attended has Sudan’s appeal been publicly raised; however, we have been speaking with numerous IMF and Bank officials, policymakers, economists, and journalists about this issue.  In these conversations, we have stressed that Sudan’s creditors must condition any consideration of debt-relief or debt servicing adjustments on concrete and lasting progress towards peace in Darfur, the full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and political and judicial reforms that fundamentally change the repressive political system in Sudan.

In addition to blocking debt-relief now for a government in Khartoum that has shown a complete disregard for protecting its own citizens, we want the international community to realize what a powerful tool it has at its disposal for peacemaking in Sudan.  Leveraging debt-relief to demonstrable signs of changed behavior by the NCP-led government and concrete and lasting peace fits perfectly with the Obama Administration’s strategy of engagement with Khartoum.  Continuing to refuse to write-off debts should be regarded as a current bilateral American stick that – with changed behavior from the Sudanese government – could become a potential bilateral carrot.  These are the very type of “earned incentives” and “serious consequences” that Save Darfur has urged the Obama Administration to include in its still yet to be released Sudan Policy Review.

There is also legal and historical precedent for conditioning debt-relief for Sudan to long-term peace and significant structural reforms to the political system.  Using the established legal principle of “odious debt” and “odious regimes,” one can make a strong argument against the international community developing a debt-relief package for a Sudanese government that has used a large portion of the $19 billion in loans accumulated by the Bashir regime to help finance civil war in South Sudan and genocide in Darfur.  As theJubilee Network USA writes:

[D]ebt is to be considered odious if the government used the money for personal purposes or to oppress the people. Moreover, in cases where borrowed money was used in ways contrary to the people’s interest, with the knowledge of the creditors, the creditors may be said to have committed a hostile act against the people. Creditors cannot legitimately expect repayment of such debts.

On a panel yesterday for the launch of a new book on debt-relief, the Norwegian Minister for International Development Erik Solheim noted that dealing with illegitimate debt is an important issue for the international community to address.  In 2006, Norway became the first developed country ever to cancel unilaterally debt claims that it acknowledged were illegitimate from five countries (Ecuador, Egypt, Jamaica, Peru, and Sierra Leone).  Notably, in taking this decision, Norway refused to write-off similar claims it held on Sudan and Burma – stating that they would consider write-off only after the “situations” changed in those countries.

We can also look to two other countries to contextualize Sudan’s current debt-relief appeals.  Sudan, today, accounts for 75% of the $2.09 billion in arrears (past due payments) owed to the IMF, World Bank, and African Development Bank. In 2007, of the 41 countries eligible for the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, only Liberia and Somalia possessed similar arrears to the IMF that blocked their full participation in the initiative.  On this situation, the IMF wrote:

Countries in arrears are all experiencing some form of crisis, ranging from violent conflict to serious governance problems and political paralysis. Typically, these crises are of long duration…Inflation tends to be far higher, and the external debt and fiscal balance ratios tend to be worse.

Of course, Liberians in 2007 were actually well on their way to rebuilding their country after its long and costly civil war.  The next year the U.S. and the international community supported the new democratic government of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf by providing it bridge loans so that it could clear its IMF arrears and reach the decision point of the HIPC Initiative.  The tragedy in Somalia though remains in perpetual chaos and, therefore, it’s still impossible for the international community to even begin a conversation on debt-relief.

The Sudanese government in Khartoum currently though has a choice: it can choose to go the direction of Liberia by ending its conflict and rebuilding its economy to serve the interests of its people, or it can choose the direction of Somalia and perpetuate its conflict for years to come and give Sudanese citizens no hope of climbing out of wretched poverty with the help of the international community.  President Obama and his administration should make this stark choice for Khartoum abundantly clear.  To that end, he should lead an international coalition of Sudan’s creditors to deal simultaneously with Sudan’s economic challenges and human rights abuses.  Providing debt-relief to Sudan before its leaders demonstrate a proven commitment to peace will not serve the interests of the Sudanese people, but rather give more political legitimacy and further financial resources to the repressive regime in Khartoum.

This is the message that we are delivering in Istanbul.  I will write more soon…

First posted Istanbul morning time at Save Darfur’s blog.

My colleague Andrea and I stepped off the plane in Istanbul about 36 hours ago.  We are here in the commercial capital of Turkey and one of the symbolic bridges between the East and the West to attend the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s annual meetings.

As neither of us proclaims to have any ground-breaking advice for world leaders as they set out to rebuild the global financial and economic infrastructure after the so-called Great Recession, why are we here?  Well, it’s certainly not to rub shoulders with U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, although we did see him and the American delegation up-close and personal today.  Instead, we are here as always to try to focus the world’s attention on peacemaking in Sudan.

But what possible role can the gathered finance ministers and international economists play in influencing politics and negotiations in Sudan?   In the next few days, I will write on how the Obama Administration and international community should condition debt relief to peace in Sudan; how accountability in Sudan’s oil sector can help avoid a return to civil war; and how the international community can help build responsible state-capacity in conflict-affected countries like Sudan.

Before I do, it’s necessary to set the stage.   How in fact has Sudan been affected by the current global economic crisis?  A recent IMF reports highlights in detail the immense and imminent economic challenges facing the Sudanese government.  In short, the large drop in oil prices over the last year has sharply lowered government revenues – perhaps cutting government revenues up to 50%. The Sudanese central bank has compounded the problem by defending the exchange rate in order to prevent a rise in domestic food and import prices.  This policy intervention drained Sudan of its foreign reserves which it had accumulated during the Khartoum-boom of the last decade.  What’s more, the Sudanese government cannot access much emergency foreign capital because of its already precarious debt burden position – it owes international creditors over $34 billion.

The IMF has sought to help many fragile and vulnerable countries overcome similar shocks brought on by the financial crisis that began last September on Wall Street.  Sudan has not been eligible for such relief because it currently owes the fund, World Bank, and African Development Bank almost $1.5 billion in arrears – this represent roughly 75% of all past due payments by member states to the IMF. So what will Khartoum do?  They invited the IMF to put together a Staff Monitored Program to assist in reforming various macroeconomic policies.  In committing to implementing IMF reforms, Khartoum also asked the IMF “to take concrete action on debt relief for Sudan.”  They followed up this request this week by sending a delegation to Istanbul to lobby for such assistance.

One of our objectives here is to contextualize this appeal from Khartoum – reminding the delegates and officials of how President Omar al-Bashir and the National Congress Party irresponsibly and egregiously used loans over the last twenty years to wage war and genocide against their own people.   Instead, we are calling on the international community to condition support for Sudan’s troubled economy on peace and human rights for all Sudanese.

By no means do we want Sudan’s economy or the country to implode.  A BBC World Debate that we attended this morning on “The Global Crisis and Policy Responses”made me reflect on the troubling state of Sudan’s economy and political system.   An impressive group debated whether the world economy has begun to recover and the long-term consequences of bailing out financial institutions that were considered “too big to fail.”   While world leaders immediately came to the rescue of investment banks and insurance companies to avoid the total collapse of the financial system, they still refuse to recognize Sudan as “too big to fail.”  The international community continues to whistle past the graveyard as the country hurdles toward perhaps a new explosive wave of violence in 2010 or 2011 that could set the whole region aflame.

Jerry Fowler, Save Darfur’s president, and leaders of the Darfur Consortium in Africa and the Arab Coalition for Darfur argued this case last week:

Re-ignition of conflict would be catastrophic for Sudan’s people and the entire region. Full-scale war and descent into chaos would also represent a dramatic and costly failure for the United States and the international community. Refugee flows and violence would upset the tenuous stability in Chad, Uganda, Kenya, the Central African Republic and Ethiopia – and gravely harm Egypt’s national security. The potential human costs to such a regional conflagration are incalculable.

Avoiding this catastrophe is the challenge for Sudanese leaders and the international community.  The world must help the Sudanese reach durable solutions to end their interlocking political crises, while at the same supporting human rights and helping build the foundations for democracy and sustainable development.  With Sudan’s economy on the brink, the IMF and World Bank certainly have a role to play.

So stay tuned for more blogging from Istanbul.  We are heading over to the convention center now for a press briefing on the status of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HPIC) Initiative and a session on how resource-rich countries (like Sudan) have dealt with the crisis.